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JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 



A SKETCH. 



WALTER BUELL 



" I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept 
the faith." 



f L Off / ^i-' 



CLEVELAND: 

WILLIAM W. WILLIAMS. 

1882. 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1882, 

By WILLIAM W. WILLIAMS, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



GiDDiNGS, far rougher names than thine have grown 

Smoother than honey on the hps of men; 
And thou shalt aye be honorably known, 

As one who bravely used the tongue and pen 
As best befits a freeman ; — even for those 

To whom our laws' unblushing front denies 
A right to plead against the life-long woes 

Which are the negroes' glimpse of freedom's skies. 
Fear nothing and hope all things, as the right 

Alone may do securely; every hour 
The thrones of ignorance and ancient Night 

Lose somewhat of their long usurped power; 
And freedom's lightest word can make them shiver 

With a base dread that clings to them forever. 

— William Cullen Bryant. 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 



I. 

Read any page of the history of the final strug- 
gle m and out of Congress which culminated in the 
war of the Rebellion, and resulted in the abolition 
of slavery in the United States, and you will en- 
counter the name of Joshua R. Giddings. The 
history of that contest is given elsewhere in this 
volume and must convey, to one who reads it, a 
sufficient understanding of the relation of parties 
and the bearings of the all important question in 
1838, when Mr. Giddings entered the House of 
Representatives. The present generation is intol- 
erant of any theory of affairs which supposes a 
providential agency ; like the French of the great 
revolution, it has taken down the Holy Image 

from the temple, and in the empty niche placed 

9 



lO JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

the brazen figure of Chance. Were it not so, 
had we half the practical and literal faith of a hun_ 
dred years ago, it would be difficult to doubt 
that Giddings was chosen before his birth for 
the great work to which he devoted the best 
years of his life ; that his clearness of brain and of 
moral vision was given him that he might see the 
right, and seeing it, unfalteringly uphold it in the 
face of the bitter opposition, the deadly personal 
hatred, the venomous slanders and malice of his 
opponents. When he was born, the old struggle 
against the slave trade was not yet passed. 
Throughout his youth the engrossing demands of 
war and the inactivity which followed a victory 
gained by the friends of the negro, in the in- 
terdiction of the slave trade, kept the subject 
in abeyance. In the prime of his early man- 
hood, while he was receiving the discipline of legal 
practice and serving an apprenticeship in the coun- 
cils of his own State, there entered the House of 
Representatives a venerable and noble man, who 
took up the burthen which the old champions of 
liberty had left by the wayside, and, almost single- 
handed, carried the war into the country of a 
united and powerful enemy. That man was John 
Quincy Adams — scholar, diplomat, and, in the 
best sense of the word, statesman. He stood 
not entirely unsupported in his advocacy, but so 
far in advance of the few of his inclining as to be 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I I 

quite alone — the single target of all the blows of a 
most malignant foe. Thus he remained until 1838, 
when Joshua R. Giddings entered Congress. Gid- 
dings accepted his election and took his seat, in- 
tending for one session at least, to learn and vote 
— not to talk. On an early day following the organi- 
zation of the House, the proposal of the infamous 
Atherton gag rule, the object of which was to deny 
the right of anti-slavery petition and discussion, 
was, by the united vote of Southern slavocrats 
and Northern doughfaces, forced upon the House. 
This outrage set the young man to thinking ; other 
high-handed measures in the House, and the sight 
of some of the lesser abuses of the slave system 
without, made him think the more, until he saw 
his duty clearly, cast his lot — and with him such 
an act was irrevocable — with the little band of anti- 
slavery men, and Adams, already seventy-three 
years old and feeling the infirmity of body which 
never touched his mind, found standing beside him, 
with brawny shoulder to his own, an unknown 
champion. 

For a year or two Giddings was a learner, yet 
he drew from the gray head of his tpaster many a 
blow, and when, nine years after his entry upon 
the arena, Adams fell in his place, the mantle, the 
inspiration, and the guardianship of the cause 
which he had held so dear, fell to the younger but 
not less earnest man. Congress was then divided 



12 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 

among slaveholders, their Northern sympathizers, 
the doughfaces who had no principles or, having 
them, feared to acknowledge them, and the little 
band of anti-slavery advocates — a forlorn hope in- 
deed — which, when Adams fell, would certainly, 
for the time, have ceased to be an appreciable 
element in the problem, had not Giddings stood 
ready to lead it. No man in Congress save he, 
had at once ability, courage, and honesty in the 
measure demanded for the task. Of all these qual- 
ities he possessed enough and to spare. He car- 
ried the contest on until the tide was turned, the 
once despised cause had become popular, until the 
question was ripe for the stern arbitrament by 
which it was finally decided. If his birth, educa- 
tion, election, choice of place and splendid service 
were but a series of chances, then indeed was the 
goddess kind to the American people. 



Joshua R. Giddings was remotely of English 
stock, an ancestor having emigrated from Eng- 
land in 1635, and settled at Gloucester, Massa- 
chusetts. His great-grandfather removed from 
Massachusetts to Lynn, Connecticut, in 1725, and 
there Joshua Giddings, father of the future Con- 
gressman, was born. Later the family lived at 
Howland, Connecticut, and in 1773, Joshua Gid- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 3 

dings, having married, followed the westward tide 
of emigration, settling in Bradford county, Penn- 
sylvania, at the little town of Tioga Point, where 
Joshua R. Giddings was born on the 6th day of 
October, 1795. Pennsylvania can not be said to 
have made any considerable direct contribution to 
the spirit and taste of the boy, for he was but six 
weeks of age when his father, who was endued with 
the characteristic spirit of an American pioneer, 
again broke up his home and moved to the village 
of Canandaigua, New York, then standing very 
near the western limits of civilization, and holding, 
as it did for many years after, an unquestioned 
place as the social and intellectual capital of west- 
ern New York. 

At Canandaigua the family remained until the 
spring of 1806, when, having made an exchange 
of his farm at that place for a large tract of wild 
land in what is now Wayne township, Ashtabula 
county, the family, save the father and the eldest 
son, who had preceded, set out, with farm stock 
and household goods, upon the weary journey in- 
to the heart of the Ohio wilderness. Hon. A. G. 
Riddle has written graphically of that journey, as 
follows : 

"The 1 6th of June, 1806, was noted for a total 
eclipse of the sun. Darkness came down on an 
emigrant train of four oxen slowly moving a wag- 
on in which were a middle-aged woman, a fresh 



14 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

young girl, a bride, whose young husband drove the 
cattle and guided the movement, aided by a youth 
and attended by a lad often. Just across the Ohio 
and Pennsylvania line were they when darkness 
came down and they were obliged to camp in the 
woods. They journeyed all the way from Canan- 
daigua, for weeks, on the road ; from Buffalo much 
of the way on the lake beach, beaten hard by the 
waves ; one night they camped in the forest, caused 
by the breaking of the wagon. They were kept 
awake by the howling of the near wolves, the 
most melancholy and plaintive sound of all the 
wilds. At nightfall of the 2ist they crossed a 
stream called by the natives Pymatuning; on the 
bank they found a deserted wigwam, where they 
passed the night not far from the famous Omica's 
town. The next day they made their way across 
the woods to where the center of Wayne nov/ 
is, in Ashtabula county, where they found a new 
rude cabin, without hearth, chimney, or window, 
surrounded by a small clearing, prepared by the 
father and eldest son, who had preceded them." 

The life of the Giddings family during those 
first years in Ohio has been described a thousand 
times ; for only in detail does it differ from that 
of any other of the hundreds who emigrated at 
nearly the same time. The greater part was made 
up of hard, constant, wearing toil against all the 
odds of nature, which had been for ages entrench- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 5 

ing itself upon the virgin soil. Neighbors were 
few and distant. Time, too, was precious; when 
leisure came arms were tired and eyes heavy ; 
the woods were trackless in the gloom or deep 
with snow. So there was little society save 
that of the home circle, and the independence or 
self-dependence, which the father had learned in 
Pennsylvania and New York, came practically and 
naturally to the sons. This independence was not 
merely a matter of spirit ; it extended to all the 
practicalities of life. Food they won from the ever- 
enlarging clearing, from the forest, with gun or 
line ; their corn and wheat they at first ground in 
a mortar hollowed in the top of a stump, by 
means of a stone pestle attached to a pole above 
it ; later, when a mill was built in the * ' neighbor- 
hood" — and neighborhood meant anywhere within 
fifty miles — the grist was carried thither on horse- 
back. Clothing was the product of their own soil 
and flocks; was carded, hatcheled, spun, and 
woven by the women of the house; and thus there 
was a necessary self-sufficiency in the life that 
taught self-denial as well as self-reliance. The 
story does not need re-telling in these pages. Call 
on any one of the fast diminishing number of 
pioneers; tell him your curiosity to know how 
he and his fared seventy years ago. With a ready 
hospitality that went out of date with home-used 
spinning wheels, and cards, he will bid you stay, 



l6 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

will draw you near the fire and tell you the very 
story that would be written here were the fortunes 
of young Giddings to be followed day by day from 
that June morning when he first reached his 
father's new home until he came to maturity. 

The uncleared farm in Wayne lay at the very cen- 
ter of the Western Reserve, — which, years after, 
stump speakers and writers of political editorials 
among the southern Democrats and the ''dough- 
faces," were wont to sneer at as a State separate 
and distinct from Ohio. It lay not at the geo- 
graphical center but at the moral center. About it 
there grew up on all sides a community so firm 
and fearless; so impatient of wrong and injustice; 
so hard-headed, practical and sensible ; so liberal 
and enlightened, that from it spread the influ- 
ence which the Western Reserve so early began 
to exert over the opinions and in the counsels of 
State and Nation, and which has known no change 
or diminution since that day. 

We are tempted to give the Western Reserve 
credit for having made such men as Giddings, 
Wade, and Garfield. It is not so. Giddings, 
Wade, and Garfield, their fathers, brothers, and 
friends, those hundreds who thought as rightly 
and spoke as strongly in the counsels of towns and 
villages and in the circle of the home, as did these 
others in the broader arena of American affairs, 
made the Reserve, as surely as the Puritans made 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 1/ 

Massachusetts, the CavaHers Virginia, or the Dutch 
New Amsterdam. Yet back of all this there is 
an indebtedness of the individual to the spirit of 
the place. The Giddings family came to Ohio, 
people of broad and cosmopolitan taste and 
view, as compared with most of their neigh- 
bors. They had as a family come in contact, 
before their removal to Ohio, with many com- 
munities in four States — Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut, where they laid the best o^ all founda- 
tions of character and opinion, in a genuine New 
England atmosphere; Pennsylvania, rude and 
ready, and if prejudiced, prejudiced in a channel 
quite different from that of the Puritans; and 
then New York, where modified Massachusetts 
and mollified Connecticut had merged into a 
society far in advance of any west of the old 
towns on the Mohawk and Hudson. Coming 
thus to Ohio after so diverse a life, the Giddings 
family had learned more than half the lesson which 
their neighbors, coming directly from the old Con- 
necticut soil, were to study for a lifetime. There 
is surely something in western air and life which 
seems to melt the intellectual and moral starch of 
the New Englander and, after a generation, pro- 
duces from the fully acclimated stock a something 
which, while it has not the reckless, swaggering 
freedom of Kentucky or Texas, is as far from the 
grim and somewhat repellant stiffness of Connect- 



1 8 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

icut ; and, like most social resultants, is superior to 
either of the elements which produced it. 

There is no doubt that much of Giddings' influ- 
ence and success as a representative of his district 
arose from his thorough sympathy with and appre- 
ciation of the opinions and spirit of his constitu- 
ents. Every day of his boyish life, on the farm 
and in the woods of Ashtabula county, contributed 
to this result. He may almost be said to have 
been present at the birth of the Western Reserve, 
and he grew up in the midst of the formation and 
development of the distinctive social and political 
faith which, in its maturity, made the opinions 
and the votes of his neighbors and friends so far 
transcend in influence their mere numerical value. 
He never had need of feeling the pulse of his con- 
stituents, for it beat in his own body ; he never 
erred in forecasting their views upon any political 
question, for, giving due latitude for minor differ- 
ences, it was always his own. 

Riddle has given us an a postei'iori picture of 
Giddings as a boy, evolved from his familiarity 
with him in later life — "a tall, raw, shapeless boy, 
with pleasant face, frolicsome gray eyes and an 
abundance of light curly hair that grew dark, fair- 
ish until the sun tanned him." He had everything 
to learn save the alphabet, when he came to Ohio: 
the subduing of the forest which stood between 
the farmer and his future crops, the care of the 



JOSHUA R, GIDDINGS. I9 

cattle, and the never ceasing round of farm duties 
called for every hand, and no small share of the 
lighter labor fell to his lot. There was little op- 
portunity for systematic education for any one; less 
for the busy son of a poor man, but the boy had 
that in him of more worth than tutors, scholar- 
ships, or wealth — an insatiable appetite for knowl- 
edp-e, which p^rew in the face of difficulties, fed and 
thrived upon the smallest food, and found new 
keenness in the very discouragement of the quest. 
We are told that the entire time passed by him at 
school was not beyond a few weeks. With the 
small capital which his knowledge of the alphabet 
gave him he worked out his own intellectual salva- 
tion. Books were very few in the country about ; 
of such as there were he became possessed as 
owner or borrower. If he heard of some new 
treasure, no miles of walking through woods and 
across fords, wet or dry, winter or summer, could 
deter him from its pursuit. He was omniverous ; 
nothing was too dry, too profound, too stupid for 
him. Not only did he read everything that came 
in his way but, v/ith the mental digestion of an 
ostrich, he mastered and assimilated the very 
broken glass and old iron of philosophy, theology 
and science. With such a heterogeneous collection 
of matter he acquired a most catholic taste. Trav- 
els, biography, poetry, fiction — he read them all, 
was thankful, but, like the young raven of the 



20 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

wilderness, ever opened his mouth for more. In 
some way he became possessed of an old copy of 
Lindley Murray's grammar — surely not an enticing 
book ; this he studied and mastered, making him- 
self thoroughly conversant with the how, and so 
far as any person not inspired can know, the why 
of the English tongue. 

All this time he was laboring in the fields or 
roaming the woods with gun and rod, not as an 
idler, but as a purveyor for his family ; he was 
growing to be a young giant in frame and in 
strength as well. In all matters of manly skill he 
yN'd.'B, facile princeps among his fellows — the quickest 
shot, the most expert angler, an invincible wrest- 
ler, a swift and tireless runner. While he was 
lamenting that he had not more books, their very 
lack was giving him time to lay up in reserve the 
physical power which was to be so sorely taxed 
during more than twenty years of constant strug- 
gle. Rev. Harvey Coe gave him primary instruc- 
tion in mathematics and he carried himself well 
forw^ard in the science, studying by the firelight or 
the flickering of a torch at home, or, at spring time, 
by the light of the blazing logs in the sugar camp, 
possessing none of the conveniences and luxuries 
of study — only the text book, the will, and the 
appetite. This process of self-education had not 
advanced thus far, when there came to the little 
home in the woods first an indefinite whisper, 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 21 

then certain news of war. The Indians, who had 
hved quietly and amicably about them, silently 
disappeared to join the enemy, leaving behind 
deserted wigwams and an imminent fear. There 
was news that the enemy was on th^ Maumee, 
plundering, burning, murdering, and moving east- 
ward. Then came the disasters of the summer 
of 1812; Detroit and all Michigan were lost and 
there was a call for volunteers. Giddings, though 
but sixteen years of age, responded, joined Colonel 
Hayes' regiment and marched to the Huron, thence 
to the stockade later famous under the name of 
Fort Stephenson. While at this fort a small scout- 
ing party was sent out upon the peninsula with 
orders to bring to camp a quantity of provisions 
which had been left at Sandusky during Hull's 
occupancy of Detroit. During this scout a con- 
siderable body of Indians was discovered in posses- 
sion of the farm of one Ramsdell, at Two Harbors 
on the shore of the lake. The force of the Indians 
was estimated by the whites at not far from fifty, 
but information received from the French, at the 
mouth of the Maumee, during the ensuing spring, 
placed the number at no less than one hundred and 
fifty. This discovery was the first intimation of 
the presence of an enemy in the vicinity and the 
little scouting party, retiring unobserved, hastened 
to the stockade and reported the facts. The gar- 
rison, originally but one hundred and fifty in num- 



22 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

ber, had been so reduced by sickness that every 
man was obHged to stand guard one-third of the 
time. The necessity of still further weakening this 
slender force was a sad one, but the officer in 
charge, recognizing the importance of attacking 
the enemy before he could be reinforced, made 
a call for volunteers for the dangerous service. 
Young Giddings was just coming in from guard 
duty, when he encountered the drummer beating 
up volunteers, and joined the party. But thirty 
minutes was given for supper and preparation ; 
then the little party of seventy-two men, com- 
manded by Captain Cotton, set out in boats and 
landed soon after sunrise at Middle Orchard, near 
where the enemy had been seen. 

Leaving a guard of eight men with the boats, the 
remainder of the party pushed forward to attack. 
During their absence, the Indians, who had deserted 
their position, approaching in canoes, stumbled 
upon the guard which had been left with the boats 
and, though the men escaped in safety to a neigh- 
boring island, it was at the expense of the two 
larger and more important boats. It is probable 
that this encounter was the first intimation which 
reached the enemy that they were liable to attack. 

Finding the expected battle ground deserted 
Cotton set his face toward the boats, taking the 
fortunate precaution of throwing out a flanking 
party. When still some distance from his destina- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 23 

tion he was suddenly attacked by the savages who 
rose from the deep grass before him. The men 
dispersed behind shelter and the fight was kept up 
sharply for some time after the arrival of the 
flankers, when it ceased as if by mutual consent, 
neither party having obtained any definite advan- 
tage, though the Indians lost more heavily than 
the whites, of whom but three were killed. Con- 
tinuing his march toward the boats, Cotton was 
again attacked when near the place of landing, and, 
finding his boats destroyed, was obliged to take 
shelter in an old log house, from which the Indians 
were unable to dislodge him. About thirty of the 
whites passed, unobserved, to the shore, were 
taken off by the boat guard which came over from 
the island where it had taken refuge, and thus 
almost miraculously escaped massacre. A party 
was sent on to the fort, assistance obtained, and 
Cotton and his men rescued from their perilous 
position. The Indians then deserted the peninsula. 
These two skirmishes were the first engagements 
fought in Ohio during the War of 1812, and were 
overlooked by all historians of the war until, in 
1843, Mr. Giddings himself contributed an account 
from which the above particulars are gleaned, to 
Squire's History of the Fire Lands. 

Five months after enlistment Mr. Giddings was 
mustered out of the service with his regiment and 
returned to his home life. Several times there- 



24 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

after, during- the war, the Reserve was menaced, 
but it never was attacked, and the young man was 
not called upon to take further part. His assist- 
ance in fact was sorely needed at home, for his 
father had invested his all in the lands upon which 
he had settled and spent so much labor, and, the 
title failing, he was thrown upon the world in 
poverty, a misfortune from which he never re- 
covered. 

Though, as this sketch has sufficiently shown, 
young Giddings' education was very desultory, it 
was broad and exact enough to earn him the ex- 
ceptional place among his neighbors which, in those 
simple pioneer communities, was readily awarded 
to one whose knowledge extended beyond the 
"three r's." He was consulted in matters of law 
and business, at the age of nineteen, was re- 
quested to teach a school in the neighborhood and 
accepted the post. Like many other men and 
women striving for self-enlightenment, he gained 
doubly in his efforts to instruct others, systematiz- 
ing his knowledge, so that it was always afterward 
available, grasping principles where he had before 
recognized only the facts which were their outward 
manifestation, and, while he showed his scholars 
how to creep, himself making great strides toward 
the broad and liberal plane which he sought. 

For four years he lived thus — a farmer, more a 
teacher, most of ah a student. He never for a 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 25 

moment vegetated, but constantly grew. His 
was not a receptive but an aggressive mind ; he 
was no doubt ambitious, for no man ever did such 
work as his to whom ambition was not a birth- 
right, yet he was no dreamer of dreams or builder 
of castles. With him to know good was to covet 
it, and to covet it meant, by the means nearest his 
hand, to strive for its possession. 

At the age of twenty-three he made choice of 
his life work and entered the law office of Elisha 
Whittlesey, of Canfield, Ohio, as a student. 
Whittlesey was himself a man of no common parts 
and, judging from results, must have possessed to 
a marked degree that rare tact which makes the 
successful teacher, for many of the lawyers whose 
brilliant powers contributed to make the bar of 
Ashtabula county one of the most notable in the 
State, came from his office, and bear, in their 
methods and ideas, the marks of his training. 
There is no memorial of Giddings' student life in 
that office, save that spread by his subsequent 
achievements upon the records of the court. This 
would tell us, if the character and habits of the 
man did not do so, that his work was constant and 
systematic, that his enthusiasm never flagged, that 
he read widely and deeply, and, at the end of his 
two years' clerkship, stood at the threshold of his 
noble profession, well prepared to enter and to 
honor it. 



26 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 



11. 

The professional reputation of Mr. Giddings 
rests upon the labor of the seventeen years from 
1 82 1, when he was admitted to the bar and began 
practice at Jefferson, the county seat of Ashtabula 
county, until 1838, when he entered Congress, 
and, to all intents and purposes, abandoned his pro- 
fession forever. No lawyer could have made bet- 
ter arguments before a court in banc, than did he in 
Congress, when discussing the legal and constitu- 
tional bearings of the slavery question ; nor more 
moving appeals at nisi prius, than were his in be- 
half of the same cause from stump and rostrum ; 
but these efforts, impossible for any but a learned 
advocate to make, still contribute to his repute as 
a statesman, not as a lawyer. 

A country practice is to-day the best training 
school for the general lawyer ; in those years this 
was more emphatically true than now. Then 
lawyers mounted their horses and rode the circuit 
with the judge, working side by side, and under 
mutual criticism day after day and week after 
week. Every cause was tried in the presence of a 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 2/ 

large proportion of the bar, — friends, rivals, and 
enemies, — and this professional audience was atten- 
tive as well as critical. Men more often came late 
into causes, accepting a retainer perhaps when the 
case was actually called, and relying upon general 
knowledge, wit, and the inspiration of an auditory 
for success. There was less of technicality, per- 
haps less of scholarship, than now ; certainly there 
was more dependence upon eloquence and per- 
sonal magnetism than upon cold argument. Peo- 
ple having no direct interest in a cause flocked to 
the court room as they now go to the theater, for 
amusement, attracted by the prospect of a pleasur- 
able intellectual excitement, rare enough in their 
lives. They crowded the court room while the 
cause was tried, and gossiped concerning it about 
the tavern and village store at night. The man 
who was in those days a leader at the bar was in- 
deed a leader among men. With however much 
of justice the people judged the quarrels among 
their fellows, they estimated lawyers by one stern 
rule — that of success. They cared more for re- 
sults than for methods ; they delighted to see elab- 
orate preparation set at naught by ready wit, and 
learning defeated by expedient. 

These little knots of fireside gossips were the 
makers or spoilers of a lawyer's name, and for 
their approval there was an emulation as keen as 
ever rose between knights tilting for a lady's favor. 



28 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

Specializing was then almost or quite unknown. 
Of course natural bent had its effect, but the lead- 
ing lawyer of the bar might be seen, like an actor 
of the same time, in drama, tragedy, farce, bur- 
lesque, and pantomime, — defending a murderer, 
defining a boundary line, prosecuting a slander 
suit, trying a horse case — all in turn. Such a prac- 
tice made lawyers — many sided, versatile, ready 
lawyers — and gave a preparation for political and 
legislative service beyond any that now exists. 

It was into such association as this that Gid- 
dings was thrown at the outset of his profes- 
sional career. This was more than sixty years' 
ago; the generation of lawyers which saw the 
beginning of his professional career, has passed 
away ; the gray-headed fathers at the bar of to-day 
were but neophytes when he ceased to practice 
and there is little save tradition to guide us in 
picturing him personally. Some of these tradi- 
tions have been so well crystallized by Mr. Riddle, 
in his sketch already quoted, that his words may 
again be borrowed with profit: 

"With the first collection of the Ohio statutes, 
known as ''the sheepskin code," and such other 
books as he could command, such clients and cases 
as came, the young lawyer procured a horse and 
portmanteau, joined his few professional brethren 
and started with the presiding judge on the com- 
mon pleas circuit, through mud and forest, legal 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 29 

lance in rest, stopping at log cabins and settling 
grave cases in log temples of justice. Those were 
the days of free manners, free lives, and practical 
jokes ; though the Grand River presbytery ex- 
pressed their disapproval of gathering sap on Sun- 
day. The commanding figure, six feet two in 
moccasins, massive head, laughing gray eyes, and 
frank manner of the young lawyer, with a reputa- 
tion for great physical strength, agility, and cour- 
age, made him a favorite with the primitive people 
who flocked from all parts of the country, and 
crowded the court rooms to hear and see the 
lawyers and to treasure up and repeat their sayings, 
and tell absurd stories of them to their less fortu- 
nate neighbors at home. Those were not the days 
of long trials nor of great speeches. Court began 
at eight in the morning and sat until ten at night. 
The young lawyer soon became noted for the 
thoroughness with which he studied his case itself, 
the tact with which he brought out his evidence, 
and shrew^dness in dealing with witnesses on the 
other side. Bland and wary, an inflexible will, a 
passionate earnestness lay seemingly passive 
under a suavity of manner not easily disturbed. 
With his industry, application, and power of 
physical and mental endurance, he grew rapidly — 
for good lawyers grow rather than are made — to 
be an accomplished lawyer of his day and his name 
was mentioned at points outside of his circuit with 



30 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

admiration and respect. His strength was in the 
care and thoroughness of his preparation, his tact 
and skill in conducting the trial of his case so that 
the final argument was really a summing up — a 
condensed statement of points already brought out 
in a forcible and happy arrangement. His knowl- 
■edge of the law, in the range of the cases of his 
time, was thorough, his method of presentation to 
the court clear and logical. He had some difficul- 
ties to overcome in his addresses to juries, but be- 
came a persuasive, ingenious advocate, knowing 
exactly the quality and calibre of his men and the 
reasons and motives that would control them." 

The quotation is sufficient to give an idea of 
what Mr. Giddings was, in manner and method, 
at that day. He was fortunate in early securing 
retainers in cases which excited general public in- 
terest and in winning unexpected success in nearly 
all. This made him talked of, and to be talked of 
is half the country lawyer's battle. Thus in the 
celebrated malpractice case of Williams vs. Haw- 
ley. Dr. Hawley was a physician and surgeon of 
much prominence and wealth, surrounded by in- 
fluential friends. Mrs. Williams, the plaintiff, was 
the wife of a poor man. By an accident she fract- 
ured one of her legs, but in such a manner that the 
limb might easily have been set and made as use- 
ful as ever. Dr. Hawley, with unaccountable stu- 
pidity, brutality, or ignorance, removed a portion 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 3 I 

of the bone and made the unfortunate woman a 
hopeless cripple. Mr. Giddings was retained by 
the injured woman and her husband, and instituted 
a suit for damages against Hawley. The profes- 
sional reputation of the defendant was at stake ; 
to him defeat meant irreparable ruin. His money, 
position, personal influence — everything that he 
could command that might give a feather's weight 
of assistance in the cause, was brought to bear in 
one of the most determined and stubborn defenses 
ever known in Ashtabula county. The physicians 
of the vicinity, moved by a natural esprit dtt coj'ps, 
were, to a man, witnesses for the defendant ; the 
cause was tried and a considerable verdict given 
the plaintiff An appeal was made to the supreme 
court, which then tried causes in the first instance 
and with a jury a new trial was had and again the 
plaintiff won a verdict. The defendant carried 
an appeal before the court in banc, made strong 
representations, that., on account of popular feeling 
in the case it was impossible for him to obtain jus- 
tice in Ashtabula, advanced technical grounds for a 
reversal, and obtained it, with an order changing 
the venue to Trumbull county. In this third trial 
the celebrated John C. Wright, of Cincinnati, 
was retained to assist the defense, and the evidence 
of the most famous physicians of New York and 
Philadelphia was introduced, yet the plaintiff again 
recovered a verdict, heavy for the time and carry- 



32 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

ing with it the costs. None of this money, it is 
said, did Giddings claim or receive. He was at 
that time young in years and young at the bar, 
and his triumph over such an array of legal and 
medical talent as was opposed to him was prob- 
ably of more real advantage to him, than would 
have been the entire amount recovered without 
the reputation. 

Retained for the defense in the cause of Ohio 
vs. Barnes, the prisoner being indicted for the 
murder of a young girl in the Kirtland woods, 
Giddings broke through a seemingly fatal web of 
circumstantial evidence, and secured an acquittal, 
although public opinion, appearances, and all the 
fortuitous circumstances which have so great an 
effect in such cases were against the prisoner. 
Many believed then and the few now living who 
remember the occurrence agree with them, that 
the extraordinary skill and tact of Mr. Giddings 
saved a life that richly deserved to be forfeited. 
In this case the able prosecuting attorney was 
assisted by Sherlock J. Andrews, one of the most 
successful trial lawyers in the West. 

Trumbull county then included what is now 
Mahoning, and Geauga what is now Lake county. 
Over the three counties of Trumbull, Geauga, and 
Ashtabula, Mr. Giddings' reputation and practice 
rapidly extended until, by the time he had been 
ten years at the bar, there was rarely an important 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 33 

cause in any of the three, upon one or the other 
side of which he was not retained. He was, in 
fact, nearly or quite at the head of the bar ten 
years after he took his place at its foot. At that 
time there was in Ashtabula county a bright young 
man of whom the world has since heard much — 
Benjamin F. Wade. With him., in 183 1, Mr. 
Giddings formed a law partnership, than which 
none could have been more fortunate for either. 
Mr. Wade had then but recently come to the bar, 
having studied in the office of Mr. Giddings' old 
preceptor. He was a young man of acknowledged 
ability, a thorough lawyer by instinct, but, so it is 
said, the victim of a modesty and lack of self con- 
fidence which, for more than a year after the for 
mation of the partnership, prevented his appear- 
ance in court. He devoted his time to the prepa- 
ration of cases and showed such learning and skill 
in this department of the business that he left Mr. 
Giddings free to devote himself to the work of the 
courts. The possibilities of the practice were 
greatly increased by this fact, and clients came in 
such numbers as to soon force Wade from his re- 
tirement behind digests and statute books and to 
speedily advance the practice, until it became by 
far the largest in the district and one of the largest 
in the State. The result of this increased client- 
age was that both partners, living in simple village 
style, accumulated money which called lor invest- 



34 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

ment. Money was then very plentiful, an era of 
wild land speculation was upon the country, values 
were artificial and confidence unbounded. Both 
Giddings and Wade made large land purchases, 
principally in Toledo, and entered with great zest 
into town lot speculations. Taking his posses- 
sions at their estimated value Mr. Giddings con- 
sidered himself rich enough to warrant his re- 
tirement from practice, and in 1836 dissolved his 
partnership with Mr. Wade, his place in the firm 
being taken by Rufus P. Ranney, who had been a 
student in the office and was newly admitted to 
practice. 

Scarcely was this change made when came the 
panic which invariably follows such artificial in- 
flation of values as had characterized the land 
market for some time, the bubble burst, the price 
of land fell much below its real value, land could 
not be sold, purchasers were bankrupt and 
could not pay. Mr. Giddings owed certain 
sums upon his purchases and found himself 
seriously embarrassed. Making the best settle- 
ment possible he returned to his profession to re- 
pair damages and in 1837 formed a partnership 
Avith Mr. Flavel Sutliffe, a brilliant young man 
whose prospects were blighted two years later by 
insanity. With such reputation as Mr. Giddings 
held at the bar and after so short an absence, it is no 
difficult matter to acquire a practice and so it proved 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 35 

in this case. The new firm had scarcely estab- 
hshed itself before it was overrun with business 
and Mr. Giddings was again in his old place before 
the people. 

This prosperous course was not destined to con- 
tinue without interruption. Elisha Whittlesey, of 
Canfield, was elected to the Eighteenth Congress, 
in December, 1823. Having served continuously 
until 1838, he was appointed fourth auditor of the 
treasury and resigned his seat in the Twenty-fifth 
Congress in the midst of his term, to accept the 
post. To the place thus vacated Giddings was 
nominated by the district Whig convention over 
the Hon. Seabury Ford, and was elected for the 
remainder of the Twenty-fifth and later for the 
Twenty-sixth Congress, serving thereafter, contin- 
uously, save for a few weeks, until the end of the 
Thirty-fifth Congress. 

Mr. Giddings did not go to Congress entirely 
without legislative experience. He had been in 
1826 elected a member of the Ohio House of Rep- 
resentatives, had served a single term, declined 
a re-election, made a run for the State Senatorship 
and, in the latter attempt, had sustained the only 
defeat he ever met at the polls. The Ohio Legis- 
lature was not at the time pressed with important 
business nor were its chambers often the scene of 
exciting incidents. The State was young, the 
Legislative duties were largely routine and the only 



36 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

significance attending Mr. Giddings' service in the 
house was the familiarity with parHamentary usage 
which it gave him — a matter of no small import- 
ance for the reason that he was scarcely in his seat 
at Washington before he began to take active part 
in legislation. 



III. 

A right understanding of the subjects and dis- 
cussions collaterally involved in this sketch, calls 
for at least a primary knowledge of the history of 
African slavery as related to North America. So 
complex is the subject, so voluminous is its litera- 
ture, and so numerous are the recorded efforts of 
individuals and associations for its repression and 
abolition that to exhaustively treat it would require 
the labor of half a lifetime and the filling of vol- 
umes with the saddest and most pitiful story in 
the history of Anglo-Saxon civilization. 

The thoughtless reader and observer of our own 
time is apt to regard the agitation which resulted 
in the release of the negro from bondage within 
the limits of the United States as a comparatively 
recent one, and it is not uncommon to hear a cer- 
tain political party charged with responsibility for 
the civil war, by reason of its espousal of the abo- 
lition cause. So far is this from the truth that the 
same discussion which made memorable the days 
when Joshua R. Giddings stood as the champion 
of right and humanity in the House of Represent- 



38 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

atives, arose in England in 1562 when Elizabeth, 
under the protest of her conscience, sanctioned 
the first removal of African slaves from the then 
doubly dark continent, by Englishmen. The argu- 
ment which the Queen then used to quiet her own 
scruples, that the slave trade, being carried on by 
Spain, Portugal, Holland, and other maritime 
powers, was a commercial necessity to England, 
grew gray with age. It was made to justify the 
traffic in American bottoms after the Independ 
ence, and only gave way when the outraged sense 
of a more enlightened century refused to recog- 
nize its conclusiveness, condemned the slave trade 
as a piracy and compelled the American advocates 
of the hideous wrong to look elsewhere for a soph- 
ism which might partially cover their awful sins. 
Then there came into being, full-grown and readily 
accepted by those whose interest it subserved, the 
awful, the impious lie, that slavery is a divine in- 
stitution, and he that raises his voice against its 
continuance or his hand to strike the shackles from 
a single black man is defying God and should be 
an outcast in this world as such must be in the 
world to come. 

From 1562 until 1863 there was never a day or 
night when good men and women were not pray- 
ing and striving that the curse of slavery might 
pass from the world. Elizabeth expressed her 
fear that some of the neeroes mieht be carried off 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 39 

*' without their free consent, " and said '* it would 
be destestable and call down the vengeance of 
heaven upon the undertakers. " Morgan Godwyn 
and Richard Baxter as early as 1650, Dr. Primett, 
Dr. Atkins, the Reverend Griffith Hughes, Ed- 
mund Burke, Bishop Warburton, and Adam 
Smith — these are some of the men who, In Eng- 
land and previous to 1765, were the advocates of 
the African cause. 

In 1765 Mr. Grenville Sharp, an English lawyer, 
took up the case of Jonathan Strong, an Ameri- 
can negro, taken to England as a slave, with a 
view to prevent his compulsory return to America. 
This he accomplished, but on special grounds, and 
was not satisfied, as he had determined to secure 
from a court of last resort the broad declaration 
that ' * as soon as a slave set foot in Eyigland lie is 
free.'' To this end he tried a number of cases, 
finally, in 1772, obtaining the desired judgment in 
the famous cause of James Somerset, and winning 
the first distinct and substantial victory ever se- 
cured for the negro in England. To illustrate the 
utterly sodden condition of judicial sentiment up- 
on the subject, it is only necessary to say that Mr. 
Sharp, in 1783, secured the arrest of the captain 
and mate of the slaver Zong, upon charge of hav- 
ing thrown overboard one hundred and thirty-two 
live negroes. The object of the men was to de- 
fraud the underwriters, and, though the offense was 



40 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

clearly proven — in fact admitted — no conviction 
was obtained. This enormity, so exposed, though 
unpunished, was not without its effect. There 
seemed an immediate quickening of the public 
sense and feeling; hundreds wrote and spoke 
strongly against the crime of slavery, and Cowper 
wrote, from the fullness of his tender heart, the 
often quoted lines: 

" We have no slaves at home; then why abroad? 
And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave 
That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd. ^ 

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free; 
They touch our country and their shackles fall. 
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
And jealous of the blessing; spread it then, 
And let it circulate through every vein 
Of all your empire — that, where Britain's pow'r 
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy, too." 

In 1783 the sentiment of the Society of Friends, 
which had been, since the days of George Fox, 
unitedly opposed to the theory of slavery, took 
definite form in a petition to the House of Com- 
mons, urging the passage of a bill, then pending in 
Parliament, for the restriction of the African slave 
trade, and praying also for the extension of the 
provisions of the act so that it might be practically 
prohibitory. This petition came from the yearly 
meeting of the Friends, and was an official declara- 
tion of the principles of the sect. It was respect- 
fully received, read, and laid on the table "on ac- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 4I 

count of the advanced progress of the session." 
Lord North, then prime minister, said that the ob- 
ject of the petition should recommend it to every 
humane breast, but that the slave trade was, ' ' in 
a commercial view, a necessity to almost every 
nation in Europe." 

In 1783, having presented its petition with the 
result stated, the Society of Friends organized, with- 
in its own membership, an association having for 
its aim systematic labor in behalf of African 
freedom. This society — the first of its kind in 
England, the second in the world — was an impor- 
tant agent in securing the results for which it was 
organized. Its existence was kept secret, and its 
members, appreciating how fatal to their object was 
the public indifference on the subject of slavery, 
set deliberately and patiently to work to create a 
popular opinion in harmony with their own. To 
this end they appointed several of their clearest 
thinkers and best writers to state and reiterate, 
through the public prints and by pamphlets, the 
moral, religious, and constitutional arguments 
against slavery; every incident of the trade and 
system which came to their knowledge and could 
be brought to account in exciting public sympathy, 
was published, commented upon, circulated, and 
repeated, until not only the reading people of En- 
gland, but laboring men lounging at inn doors, and 
apprentices at their work-tables, knew that a great 



42 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

wrong was being" committed with the assent of the 
EngHsh people and under the protection of their 
flag. The vakie of all this quiet and apparently- 
spontaneous agitation was not at once made evi- 
dent by any definite public action, but the Friends 
found themselves gaining new allies, who supple- 
mented and extended their work, and by this 
gradual accession there grew up a party and a pub- 
lic sentiment, so strong as not only to render possi- 
ble, but to compel the action which tardily fol- 
lowed. Co-operation was established without 
regard to sect; correspondence was opened with 
sympathizers in France, America, and elsewhere; 
the cloak of secrecy was thrown off, and, finally, 
in 1788, Mr. Wilberforce opened, in the House of 
Commons, the parliamentary struggle, which was 
destined to continue for twenty years, to result in 
placing Great Britain in a position of permanent 
antagonism with slavery — to finally lead to the 
abolition of the slave trade. On the 9th of May, 
in the year named, he presented a motion pledg- 
ing the House at an early day in the coming ses- 
sion ' ' to take into consideration the circumstances 
of the slave trade complained of, . . and what 
may be fit to be done thereupon." 

This long and weary struggle cannot be followed 
here. As always in the conflict with slavery, the 
pecuniary interest of the kingdom and of individ- 
uals, was arrayed against fundamental moral truths 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 43 

which no man could deny and none not so blinded 
could oppose. The Society, through whose efforts 
the matter had come before Parliament, was untir- 
ing in its efforts to strengthen the hands of the 
friends of freedom within that body. Its agents, 
spent years of time and great sums of money in 
traveling, observing and collecting facts and statis- 
tics upon which might be founded arguments in 
their behalf; the horrible traffic was followed to 
its source and to its ultimate extent, that its mur- 
derous cruelty and deep degradation might tell 
their own story in the councils at Westminster. 
Whoever else supported or opposed the cause, 
Wilberforce was always faithful and indefatigable ; 
he devoted his entire time, thought, influence, and 
much of his money to its advancement, and, after 
many rebuffs, delays, and temporary defeats, none 
of which disheartened him for an hour, won the 
first seeming parliamentary advantage, when, on 
the 25th of April, 1792, the House of Commons 
agreed to a gradual emancipation of all slaves 
held in British colonies, to be complete in 1796. 
On the 8th of May, 1792, the House of Lords 
met to consider the resolution, abandoned the ex- 
amination almost at the outset, laying it over un- 
til the next session and, in that next session, did 
little more. The matter having been postponed it 
was necessary to secure its reconsideration in the 
House of Commons that it mieht be reaffirmed. 



44 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

Moving for this reconsideration Mr. Wilberforce 
met a rebuff, the House of Commons taking 
advantage of a technicahty to defeat its own reso- 
lution. 

This single episode is related to give some faint 
idea of the constant disappointment against which 
these brave men so long struggled to final victory. 
This victory came in a preliminary form by the 
passage on the 31st day of March, 1806, of a bill 
intended to prevent the employment of British 
capital and bottoms in the slave trade ; on the 5th 
of January, 1807, the final and more definite reso- 
lution was passed in the House of Lords ; it was 
sent to the Commons, amended, returned to the 
Lords, approved by them, passed by both Houses 
on the 24th of March, 1807, and, on the 25th, 
received the assent of the king and became a law. 
It provided that no vessel should clear for slaves 
from any port in the British dominions, after May 
I, 1807, and no slaves be landed within British 
jurisdiction after May i, 1 808. 

The men by whose tireless efforts the first grand 
step had been accomplished, were not disposed to 
accept this half success as an excuse for idleness. 
Their labors, in and out of Parliament, procured the 
advance of the slave trade from a misdemeanor, 
punishable by fine, to a felony, punishable by 
transportation or imprisonment at hard labor for 
fourteen years, and this penalty, as well, proving 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 45 

ineffectual, the offense was through their efforts de- 
clared piracy, with the penalty of death. So it con- 
tinued from 1824 until 1837, when a too merciful 
administration again reduced its punishment to im- 
prisonment for life. 

Still unsatisfied, the devoted advocates of human 
liberty continued their efforts until they were 
crowned with a full and final reward, in 1833, when, 
on the 28th day of August, slavery was absolutely 
and summarily abolished throughout British do- 
minions. 

The somewhat over-long discussion of the anti- 
slavery movement in England has not been given 
space without an object. It conveys the best pos- 
sible means of estimating the work accomplished 
by the great champions of American liberty. It 
accounts for the bitter rancor, the personal and 
class hatred, the proscription of the individual, 
the sinking of principle in selfishness, the debase- 
ment of society, the corruption of the church, and 
final war in our own country. It shows how ter- 
rible was the task undertaken by Adams, Slade, 
and Giddings, for, if it required twenty-eight years 
for the British Parliament to prohibit the slave 
trade and forty-six years to free but little more 
than seven hundred thousand slaves — when the in- 
terest of the members of that body were related 
to slavery only as were those of the free States in 
America, through channels of trade and com- 



4^ JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

merce — what wonder that the four milhons of 
American negro bondmen should have remained 
in slavery so long; that a Congress, morally con- 
trolled by their masters and numerically by their 
enemies, should have failed of liberating them ; 
that Adams should have died with his hopes un- 
realized ; that Sumner should have been stricken to 
the ground because he dared advocate their cause ; 
that John Brown should have been hanged ; that 
America should have suffered the bloodiest civil 
war of modern times ! 

Slavery in North America was first introduced 
in 1620 by the landing of a cargo of negroes at 
Jamestown, Virginia, from a Dutch ship. There 
was probably little thought among the settlers as 
to the moral bearing of the act — little anticipation 
of the extension and growth of the institution, 
which they were unwittingly instrumental in estab- 
lishing — only the pressure of a present necessity, 
the sad lack of hands to subdue for them the 
wilderness which lay beyond them. For forty 
years the colony of Virginia went on, from day to 
day, receiving an occasional cargo of slaves from 
the Dutch, utilizing them as they came, but not 
until 1660 were the negroes enough in number or 
importance, to call for any colonial enactment for 
the protection or definition of the system. 

Mr. George W. Julian, in a valuable article 
published under the title of "The Genesis of Mod- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 47 

ern Abolition," in the International Review for 
June, 1882, says: "It is gratifying to know that the 
evils of American slavery were never without their 
witness. As early as the year 1688 some Germ.aii 
Quakers in Pennsylvania lifted up their voices 
against the traffic in men. This was seconded by 
the official action of the yearly meeting of the 
colonies of Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 1696. 
The earliest action of the New England Quakers 
against the slave trade was in 17 1 5. William 
Burling was the first anti-slavery Quaker of any 
note in this country, and was followed by Ralph 
Sandiford w^ho wrote against slavery in 1729, and 
by Benjamin Lay who wrote and spoke against it 
in 1737. The labors of these anti-slavery apostles 
were followed by those of the untiring and ever 
faithful Anthony Benezett, and his powerful coad- 
jutor, John Woolman, whose traveling ministry of 
more than twenty years bore witness to his faith- 
fulness, and largely aided the complete emancipa- 
tion of the Society of Friends from the evil of 
slavery, which was accomplished in the colonies in 
which he labored, soon after his death." 

The original body of law, adopted by the colony 
of Massachusetts, prohibited slavery in general 
terms, but left a wide latitude for construction in 
the reservations : "Unless it be lawful captives, 
taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingly 
sell themselves or are sold unto us, and these shall 



48 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

have all the liberties and Christian usages which 
the law of God, established in Israel, requires. " 
The literal construction of this Mosaic exception 
gave sufficient warrant to the shrewd colonists for 
the introduction of the convenient system cf 
African bondage, and it was early taken advantage 
of Connecticut followed with a legalizing act in 
1650 ; The Dutch of the New Netherlands intro- 
duced a mild form of negro bondage in 1650, and 
left it as an heritage to the colony of New York. 

So, from colony to colony, north and south, as 
the settlement advanced, there were carried along 
with it the seeds of wrath from which, so long 
after, the nation, then unborn, was destined to reap 
a retribution so terrible. As the planting and 
growth of slavery advanced, so did the provision 
for its control and defense ; laws were enacted re- 
garding slave property, defining its nature, liability 
to seizure for debt and distribution in cases of in- 
testacy; enactments were made, too, fixing the 
right of the master to his slave, the punishment 
of offences against slave property and, in the 
South, laying the foundations of that divine system 
to the beneficence of which two generations of 
Southern orators in Congress and on the stump 
bore so eloquent witness. 

The spread of the institution and its abolition 
at the North cannot be followed here. Both are 
matters of history, and the present work has only 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 49 

to do with the account of those repressive meas- 
ures which paved the way for, and defined the 
labors of, Joshua R. Giddings. 

The North never took kindly to slavery. Though 
it accepted the temporary advantage to be gained 
from the use of the slaves, there was something in 
the constitutional tendencies and the religious and 
social feeling of all who lived in New England, or 
moved westward from those mother colonies, essen- 
tially opposed to permanent human bondage. 
Pennsylvania, too, was, by reason of its large 
Quaker population, very impatient of the existence 
of slavery and took early ground against its spread. 
In 1705 an act was passed by the assembly of that 
colony deprecating the further importation of negro 
and Indian slaves, and, in 17 12, a second act im- 
posing a duty of twenty pounds each upon all 
slaves so imported. This duty was so great as to 
be, as was doubtless intended, essentially prohib- 
itory. These early attempts at regulating the 
slave trade were annulled by royal edict. New 
England, New Jersey, and New York also took 
repressive steps at about the same time with no 
better result. 

The first and most important effective legislative 
action toward the limitation and control of slavery 
was taken in 1787 by the last Continental Congress, 
which, in prescribing a system of laws for the gov- 
ernment of the territory of the United States north- 



50 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

west of the Ohio river, included a perpetual prohi- 
bition of the introduction within its bounds of slav- 
ery or involuntary servitude, save as a punishment 
for crime. 

The committee previously appointed by Con- 
gress, for the framing of an ordinance for the gov- 
ernment of all the territory of which the sov- 
ereignty remained in the confederation of colonies, 
viz: all not included within the actual limits of one 
of the original thirteen colonies, had introduced a 
similar clause drawn by Thomas Jefferson, its 
chairman, but as the territory included all the 
region adjacent to Virginia and the colonies to 
the southward, the slave-holding class, already 
jealous of any measure which might possibly 
abridge the spread of the institution in the South, 
defeated the provision, striking it out from the or- 
dinance. The limitation of the effect of the latter 
article, as passed in 1787, to territory northwest of 
the Ohio, disarmed this antagonism and secured 
to the free North and West a safeguard from the 
encroachments of slavery, without which it is 
doubtful whether its advance could have been 
checked. 

This brings us to the year 1787, when assembled 
at Philadelphia the convention to revise the articles 
of confederation of the colonies and which framed 
the Constitution of the United States. 

At that time few people contemplated the per- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 5 I 

manency of slavery, fewer defended it, and none 
dared justify it on abstract grounds. Expediency 
and convenience were its best friends. Had the 
Southern delegates to the convention foreseen the 
future, slavery would have been recognized and dis- 
tinctly approved; had the North possessed the 
same prevision it would have been condemned and 
irrevocably forbidden; had both appreciated the 
full importance of the subject, it is probable that 
no Constitution would have been adopted, and 
a union of the States would have proved impossi- 
ble. 

As it was, slavery gained but three concessions 
in the Constitution. The first was a provision that 
Congress should not prohibit the slave trade before 
1 808 ; the second, that persons held to service or 
labor in one State, under the laws thereof, and es- 
caping into another, should not be thereby dis- 
charged from such service or labor, but should be 
delivered upon claim of the person to whom such 
labor was due ; the third that, for purpose of rep- 
resentation in Congress, three-fifths of the slave 
population should be enumerated. The granting 
of these three concessions on the part of the North- 
ern men was, in reality, to quote the word used 
at the time, in pursuance of a "bargain," in con- 
sideration of which the South, especially and di- 
rectly interested in the cheap transportation of 
goods to Europe, consented to surrender to the 



52 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

General Government the right to prescribe laws 
to regulate navigation, thus opening the doors to 
the protection of New England vessel owners, at 
the expense of Southern producers. 

The only right of limiting the slave trade re- 
served to the United States previous to 1808, was 
conveyed in a clause which empowered it to im- 
pose a tax upon such importation of not more 
than two dollars per head. During the session of 
the first Congress of the United States, determined 
efforts were made to secure the imposition of this 
tax, all of which were defeated. The South op- 
posed the tax on general principles. Many North- 
ern men disapproved of it as in a measure recog- 
nizing slavery and, in effect, declaring the negro a 
commodity of trade. The same fate awaited a 
similar effort made in the second Congress. Both 
sessions were marked by stirring debates concern- 
ing anti-slavery petitions received from various 
societies throughout the United States. The first 
of these came from the Pennsylvania society, or- 
ganized in 1787, of which Benjamin Franklin was 
the first president. The memorial in question was 
signed by him officially, his participation in the 
matter being one of the last acts of his busy life. 
Nearly all these petitions were drawn, circulated, 
and forwarded to the House, by Quakers, and the 
discussion of the subject by Southern members 
degenerated i/ito a bitter abuse of that sect. 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 53 

The subject of slavery was constantly before 
Congress in one form or another. In 1793, in 
pretended accordance with the constitutional pro- 
vision, a law providing for the surrender of fugi- 
tives from justice passed Congress, attracting little 
or no attention or opposition. The first clause of 
the bill was substantially that now in force, pro- 
viding for the surrender, upon requisition, of escaped 
persons charged with or indicted for the commis- 
sion of crime. The second clause gave to the 
owner of any slave, or his agent, power to seize 
the slave, wherever found within the United States, 
to bear him before any magistrate or justice of the 
peace when, upon presenting to such officer proof, 
oral or written, to tJie satisfaction of such magistrate^ 
that the prisoner was an escaped slave, the com- 
plainant should be entitled to convey him to such 
point as he chose, protected by a legal certificate. 
This statute lay almost unnoticed for some time, 
and only when it was enforced did" the opponents 
of slavery recognize how egregiously they had been 
duped. That the act transcended both the letter 
and the spirit of the Constitution, there is no ques- 
tion ; that it opened the door to endless injustice 
and cruelty, perjury, fraud, and, — according to the 
view of the day — theft, is amply attested by the 
history of its enforcement. In 1797 there was a 
futile effort to forbid the institution of slavery in 
the proposed new Territory of Mississippi ; in 



54 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

1803 ^ determined movement was made to suspend 
or repeal that portion of the compact relating to 
the Northwest Territory which inhibited slavery, 
so far as the same related to Indiana. The pro- 
posal was vigorously opposed and eventually 
defeated. In 1805 and 1806 this attempt was 
renewed in many forms, all that self-interest could 
suggest, and ingenuity and eloquence further, was 
done for its success, but its defeat in the latter 
year was final, and the safeguard so happily erected 
in 1787 remained thereafter untouched. 

In 1807 President Jefferson, anticipating the 
expiration of the constitutional limitation over the 
power of Congress to abolish the slave trade, 
recommended in his annual message that that body 
should at once take steps to absolutely forbid it. 
This portion of the message was referred to a 
special committee of the House, and that commit- 
tee reported a bill " to prohibit the importation or 
bringing of slaves into the United States or the 
Territories thereof, after the 31st day of December, 
1807." Then ensued one of the most exciting 
debates ever known in Congress up to that time. 
Southern members threatened to defy the bill, 
abused its framers, and came out more openly than 
ever before, in an abstract advocacy of slavery. 
In spite of all these efforts the bill passed, thus 
freeing America from the stigma of the slave trade 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 55 

at almost the same time when England wiped out 
the same disgrace. 

The bill as passed provided heavy fines, and 
imprisonment for from five to ten years, for the 
various forms of participation in the slave trade, 
made the knowing purchaser of a slave imported 
contrary to the provisions of the act a particeps 
criniinis, subject to fine, and provided for the con- 
fiscation of every vessel engaged in the trade. 

Mr. George W. Julian, iii the opening of the 
paper already quoted, says : " The anti-slavery 
movement of this country may properly be dividea 
into two dispensations. The first had its begin 
ning soon after the introduction of slavery into 
the colonies, and ended, with only partial results, 
near the close of the last century. The second 
began early in the second century; just as slavery 
was entering upon its baleful career of domination, 
and closed with its destruction by the power of 
war. . . ." That the writer suggests a just 
and very obvious distinction in these words,is beyond 
a doubt, but there seems to be less reason for assign- 
ing the latter part of the last century, as the time 
when closed the first dispensation, than for placing 
it at the year 1807. With the passage of the 
law interdicting the slave trade, the object, which 
had been paramount in the early anti-slavery effort 
of the United States, was attained ; from that time 
there was a rearray of forces and a revision of 



55 JOSHUA R. GIUDINGS. 

issues. As has been shown, the effort of the anti 
slavery people from colonial times until 1807. had 
been largely for the suppression of the slave trade 
and the mitigation of slave conditions. The 
northern states held slaves — New York as recently 
as 1830. Ideas had not been crystallized ; few men 
were bold enough to advocate, even if they favored, 
an immediate freeing of all slaves. The majority 
of anti-slavery sympathizers favored a gradual 
emancipation as proposed by Jefferson. Many 
who desired the prohibition of the slave trade, to 
prevent an increase of slavery, were willing to 
accept the existing institution, as an evil, but as one 
necessary to our social and industrial condition. 
The wisest of the friends of the negro were willing 
to be content with one battle at a. time. 

On the part of the South the opposition to act- 
ive anti-slavery measures in all these early days, 
was temporizing ; nearly ajl admitted slavery to be 
wrong in the abstract, and tacitly admitted that 
the time for its abolition must come. Church 
bodies, afterward the most formidable champions 
of the system, were its opponents and mere tem- 
porary necessity and advisability, were usually its 
excuse. By the year 1807, the public conscience 
of the slave-holding section was seared ; the poison 
of the pernicious sore upon the body politic was 
coursing in its veins. Men found the negro a 
good thing to have, to breed, to sell and speculate 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 57 

in. Indeed, the desire of Virginia "breeders" to 
profit by the stoppage of importation, at the ex- 
pense of Southern States, was a valuable assistance 
in securing the suppressive legislation. Slavery 
now ceased to have apologists, having at last found 
defenders, who quoted Mosaic law, Greek history, 
and Latin classics, to prove that God had intended 
Rhode Island skippers and Spanish free-sailers to 
steal men and women on the Guinea coast and 
sell them to the Southern planter. They told this 
lie until they believed it, and, from the time when 
ended the first dispensation, with the lopping off the 
boughs, until 1863, the attack and defense of the 
root of slavery never ceased. 

This was the second dispensation, which com- 
menced with the year 1808. 

From 1808 to 18 18 no vitally important step 
was taken in regard to slavery, in or out of Con- 
gress. The anti-slavery spirit was growing in 
every Northern State, and those demands were 
formulating, which contemplated the absolute aboli- 
tion of the system. In March, 18 18, the delegate 
from the Territory of Missouri, which embraced 
the present States of Missouri and Arkansas, sub- 
mitted a petition for the admission of so much of 
the Territory as now bears the name of Missouri, 
as a State. Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, pro- 
posed an amendment to the bill, which provided 
against the introduction of slavery in Missouri, 



58 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

and for the freedom of all children born within its 
limits, after admission, upon reaching the age of 
twenty-five years. Mr. Tallmadge and Mr. Fuller, 
of the same State, supported the amendment in 
able yet moderate speeches. It is curious to read 
to-day the words of these then advanced thinkers, 
and note their disclaimers of any intention to in- 
terfere with the status quo in existing States ; to 
see how readily they accepted the Southern exten- 
sion of the interpretation of the Constitution, 
which was claimed to recognize and protect the 
institution of slavery. Moderate as were these 
speeches, they called forth an outburst of fury from 
the Southern members, that rivaled the best efforts 
of the later Lecompton days. One member from 
south of Mason and Dixon's line, rather inconse- 
quently, though eloquently, dragged in Caesar and 
the ides of March ; another accused Tallmadge of 
talking to the galleries and endeavoring to excite 
a servile rebellion ; a third said that the member 
had kindled a flame which oceans of blood could 
not quench. Mr. Tallmadge, goaded beyond the 
point of policy, then made a speech which was 
one of the first, having the true, manly, independ- 
ent ring, ever made in Congress in the slavery con- 
test. This redoubled the fury of a debate already 
sufficiently bitter. The struggle continued until 
the month of March, 1820. Every expedient 
known to legislation was brought to bear for and 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 59 

against the amendment, and a later one of the same 
tenor. Early in 1820, Maine being a candidate 
for admission to the Union, the bill to that effect 
was loaded down with a rider giving unconditional 
admission to Missouri. Then a bill was introduced 
prohibiting forever the establishing of slavery north 
or west of the Territory of Missouri. 

The restrictionists had a small working majority 
in the House; the anti-restrictionists in the Senate. 
In the House the restricting amendment was 
adopted, the Senate disagreed, and, as neither 
body would recede from its position, a conference 
committee was appointed and a settlement effected, 
upon the basis of which Missouri was admitted. 
This was the famous Missouri Compromise. By 
its provisions Missouri was to be admitted as a 
State, and Arkansas erected as a Territory without 
any anti-slavery condition. In consideration of 
this concession it was agreed that slavery be for- 
ever prohibited in all the territory north and west 
of Missouri and Arkansas. This compromise was 
effected in March, 1820, the House giving a vote 
of ninety in its favor to eighty-seven opposed. Of 
the ninety, but fourteen were from free States ; of 
the eighty-seven all were from free States. 

In November of the same year Missouri applied 
for admission, providing in her constitution for the 
permanent protection of slavery, and forbidding 
the residence of any free colored man within her 



60 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

limits. The latter provision was stricken out, and 
Missouri admitted, slavery gaining its first great 
advantage against a North so nearly united, only 
by the aid of the votes of the weak-kneed North- 
ern members. This compromise paved the way 
for the Kansas and Nebraska troubles and the Le- 
compton outrage. Randolph of Virginia, a de- 
voted opponent of restriction, voted and argued 
during all the earlier stages of the contest against 
any measure which imposed the smallest condition 
upon the admission of Missouri, and, in debate, 
coined the famous phrase ''dough face," applying 
it to those who favored compromise. 

The years from 1820 to 1838 were characterized 
by a deepening antagonism between the parties to 
the great struggle. Abolitionist societies grew 
and multiplied; a National society of the kind was 
formed; petitions from these rained constantly 
upon Congress. Many residents of the District 
of Columbia petitioned for the gradual abolition of 
slavery in that district. The whole subject involved 
in the petitions was referred to a committee of 
which Pinckney, of South Carolina, was chairman. 
That committee reported that Congress had no 
constitutional power to abolish slavery in any 
State; that its abolition in the District of Colum- 
bia was inexpedient and dangerous; that any me- 
morials or petitions upon the subject thereafter re- 
ceived, be at once laid upon the table, without read- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 6 1 

ing, publication, reference, or other attention. 
This precious report was adopted. 

The Senate, not to be behind in wisdom and 
hberahty, and in coiyiphance with a sapient sug- 
gestion in the annual message of the President, 
passed a bill prohibiting the circulation of any 
abolition document, paper, book or picture, through 
the mails in any slave State, prescribed heavy pen- 
alties for mailing such matter, forbade postmasters, 
under special penalties, to deliver it, and provided 
that it be burned. John C. Calhoun drew this in- 
quisitorial bill and Van Buren gave a casting vote 
in its favor. 

Such is, in mere outline, the history of the anti- 
slavery struggle in England and the United States, 
up to the time when Mr. Giddings was elected a 
Representative in Congress. The social and polit- 
ical condition of the United States-was at its worst. 
Every day of the century had given slavery a new 
advantage. Society in the North as well as the 
South, was corrupted by its fatal influence ; the 
people had proved the truth and wisdom of Pope's 
warning against vice ; familiarity had made slavery, 
first viewed with horror and aversion, the dearest 
sin of its partisans, while to the masses in the 
No-rth it was an object of indulgent apology or 
indifference. 

Open opposition to the institution meant ridi- 
cule, scoffing, and ostracism in the North ; hatred, 



62 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

slander, abuse, assault, and death in the South. 
The friends of slavery were united in Congress and 
at the polls ; they commanded splendid legislative 
ability, which was supplemented by the toadyism, 
cowardice and indifference of the North, until they 
controlled a majority, upon every question involv- 
ing their cherished institution. Every Northern 
man who surrendered to them they used, patron- 
ized, and despised ; such as refused subservience, 
they strove to silence by fair means or foul. They 
swaggered in the halls of legislation, with pistols, 
bowie knives, and canes, — ready to piece out argu- 
ment with violence and murder ; they goaded sensi- 
tive men to anger — then killed them in duels ; they 
sought to crush out free speech and the right of 
petition, and to make the councils of the American 
people pander to their lust for power, wealth, and 
ease. 

The church, formerly opposed to slavery, was 
corrupt to the core ; pulpits were disgraced by the 
impious sophisms which were daily and hourly 
repeated in Congress and in the prostituted columns 
of the Southern press. The first chapter of 
Romans gives a picture which is scarcely too strong 
for transfer to this page of American history. 

To such a Congress Giddings went as the Rep- 
resentative of an anti-slavery constituency, which 
liad shortly before been moved to its depths upon 
the subject, by the pictures and appeals of Wells, 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 63 

the devoted advocate of abolition. Himself in 
warm sympathy with the cause, he could not have 
found in the United States a constituency more 
loyal and consistent in its support, nor could that 
constituency have found a man more fit to bear 
their colors to the field. 



64 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS 



IV. 

It was on the 24th day of November, 1838, that 
Mr. Giddings set out for Washington, to assume 
the seat which he was destined to fill for twenty- 
one years, with so much honor to himself and so 
great advantage to his country and to the cause of 
humanity. He went, a novtis homo, to a body 
which had lived half its alloted term ; to duties 
far beyond any he had ever assumed, to a life and 
atmosphere as alien to that of his home and State 
as could well be imagined. His capital was clear- 
ness of brain, strength of body, honesty of pur- 
pose, and a deep and solemn sense of responsibility 
to his God, to himself, and to his constituency. 
Beyond all this he had retained, to a degree very 
rare in these over-sophisticated days, a simplicity 
and faith in men and motives which were destined 
to be sadly shocked by his early months of contact 
with the legislative world. To his honor be it said 
that, while he was compelled, by later experience, 
to modify his estimate of others, he was never less 
simple, less strictly and sternly conscientious in 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 6$ 

his dealings with himself, never less single-minded 
than when he left his pleasant home in Jefferson 
on that raw and inclement November day. 

Upon setting forth he opened a journal intended 
for the refreshment of his memory and the amuse- 
ment of his own family. With the directness and 
lack of reserve which can be found only in such 
records, he continued to set down, throughout 
this first session, simple outlines of his plans, 
thoughts, impressions, and experiences, which 
constitute the best possible index to his character. 
Much contained in its pages is now trite and irrele- 
vant ; much can not be published without a breach 
of the confidence of the illustrious man who penned 
its lines, well toward a half century since, but there 
remains enough available for use in these pages to 
well repay the care with which it has been pre- 
served. 

The journal tells little save of the monotonous in- 
cidents of the journey until, having left Wheeling 
and crossed the Alleghanies by coach, the traveler 
and his companions encountered at Frederick an- 
other party of Congressmen hastening to Washing- 
ton. Under date of Novemiber 29th, Mr. Gid- 
dings says of this meeting : 

"This morning, soon after breakfast, we were 
joined by a number of members of Congress who 
had traveled night and day, without any stopping, 
except to eat their meals. Among them I was 



66 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

introduced to a gentleman by the name of Crockett, 
a name familiar to most of our American people, 
for, I think, few among us are ignorant of the bi- 
ography of David Crockett, his father. The son 
appears to possess few of the leading traits of char- 
acter which distinguished his father. He seemed 
to be a modest, unassuming man, and is said to be 
very amiable in his character and disposition. 
Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, also formed one of the 
company. He is a man of middle size, well built, 
with dark complexion and black eyes. He was 
born in the lower walks of life, and up to the time 
*he was two-and-twenty, probably never thought of 
rising from obscurity. In i8 12 he was a wagoner 
in the Northwestern army. At that time, it 
is said his unrivalled wit and the brilliancy of 
his imagination used to draw around a lazy throng, 
during the long evenings, and he then prided him- 
self as much, probably, on attracting the notice and 
admiration of teamsters and soldiers, as he now 
does on standing forth as one of the most brilliant 
orators in the councils of the nation." 

This description is interesting as showing the 
first impression made upon Mr. Giddings by a 
man with whom he was destined for so many years 
to be constantly associated. 

The following bit of description of the ride over 
the Baltimore & Ohio railroad to Washington, 
which was evidently Mr. Giddings' first journey by 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 6/ 

rail, is also worth quoting. It follows the forego- 
ing passage, under the same date : 

"At II o'clock about one hundred and twenty 
passengers seated in three cars, carrying from forty 
to sixty passengers each, started upon the Balti- 
more & Ohio railroad, for Washington. The cars 
are well carpeted, and the seats cushioned. We 
had also a stove in each car which rendered them 
comfortably warm. Thus seated, some conversing 
in groups, others reading newspapers, and some 
from loss of sleep in traveling, sleeping in their 
seats, we were swept along at the rate of fifteen 
miles per hour. At the usual hour our candles 
were lighted, and we presented the appearance of 
three drawing rooms filled with guests, traveling 
by land. At about 7 o'clock we arrived at Wash- 
ington city. The moment we stopped, we were 
surrounded on every side with runners, porters, 
hackmen, and servants — one calling to know if you 
would go to Brown's, another if you would take a 
hack, etc. They are a source of great annoyance 
which the police ought to prevent." 

On the evening of Saturday, December ist, a 
caucus of the Whig members of the House was 
held, preliminary to organization. This Mr. Gid- 
dings attended, but passes in his journal with no 
further comment than the remark, **I was pleased 
with the talent, foresight, and acumen exhibited by 
the leaders of our party: Sergeant, of Pennsyl- 



6S JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

vania; Bell, of Tennessee, and Evans, of Maine, 
are among the leaders. 

On the following Monday, the 3d of December, 
the House organized, and Mr. Giddings with other 
new members, presented his credentials, was 
sworn, and took his seat. After passing very 
briefly the formalities which preceded adjournment 
for the day, Mr. Giddings continued, in his journal, 
as follows: " I this day, for the first time, had an 
opportunity of observing many of the distinguished 
men of the Nation, and I confess I was disap- 
pointed in their appearance. There was not that 
dignity of carriage about them which I expected. 
Among them was John Q. Adams, formerly Presi- 
dent of the United States, and now Representative 
from Massachusetts. He was, strictly speaking, 
educated a politican, and has continued in political 
life from his youth up to this time. He is said to 
have spent more than twenty-eight years of his 
life at foreign courts. He has held many respon- 
sible offices under the Government, and is said 
always to have acquitted himself with honor. 
He is about five feet eight inches in height, very 
bald, low forehead, and nothing about the shape of 
his head that indicates unusual talent, yet his 
physiognomy has something of an intellectual 
appearance. He is truly regarded as a venerable 
personage." 

Mr. Adams was at that time for various reasons 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 69 

the most notable man in the House. The second 
President of his family, a man of the highest cult- 
ure and widest knowledge ; and who had been all 
his life a student of books and a student of men ; 
at once scholar, poet, man of affairs, diplomat, and 
statesman, with the polish given by years of resi- 
dence at the most polite courts of Europe, laid upon 
such a foundation as nature and early culture had 
given, he came to the House of Representatives the 
first ex- President of the United States who had ever 
taken a seat in its membership. He nominally 
represented a Whig constituency, but he admitted 
the right of no party to dictate his action; he sat, 
as few have ever done, a true representative of the 
people, knowing no law but that which imposed 
upon him the obligation to do right and to shun 
wrong, fearless and feared, imperious, dictatorial, 
just — what wonder that the grand old man was 
the foremost figure in that chamber, and that the 
novice upon the threshold of political life, should 
have paused, amid all the excitement of his entry, 
to draw a portrait of him. Neither then knew 
that the vigorous young westerner had come into 
the field to relieve the guard which the brave 
veteran had so long maintained in the cause of 
humanity ; that the two were destined for a time to 
serve side by side, then the mantle of the elder to 
fall upon his comrade's shoulders ; that the achieve- 
ments of the two should represent to posterity 



70 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

more efficient service in the cause of the negro 
slave than any other record. 

An entry in the journal, under the date of De- 
cember 4th, clearly illustrates the honesty and 
straightforwardness of Giddings. It is as follows : 
' ' I also learned to-day that a resolution was passed 
at the last session of the present Congress, appro- 
priating to each member a copy of certain books, 
to the number of some sixty volumes, and of the 
value of from five to ten hundred dollars, and, be- 
ing a member of this Congress, the question is 
now in my mind, whether I ought to take the 
books. In this way some forty to fifty thousand 
dollars of the public funds have been extracted 
from the public treasury and given to members, by 
way of perquisites, over and above their compen- 
sation. Now, if the pay of members is not suffi- 
cient, I would raise it; if it be sufficient, why take 
more without letting the people know it ? But 
the members seem to think it of little import- 
ance." 

Read what he says in his entry for December 
14th: " It is a fact, which every man of observa- 
tion must see, by spending a few days in the Repre- 
sentatives' hall, that there is a vast difference in the 
character of the members from the North and South. 
During this week every person present must have 
witnessed the high and important bearing of the 
Southern men; their self-important airs, their over- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. /I 

bearing manners, while the Northern men, even on 
the subject of slavery, are diffident and forbearing. 
I have myself come to the honest conclusion that 
our Northern friends are, in fact, afraid of these 
Southern bullies. I have bestowed much thought 
upon the subject; I have made inquiry, and think 
we have no Northern man who dare boldly and 
fearlessly declare his abhorrence of slavery and 
the slave trade. This kind of fear I never experi- 
enced, nor shall I submit to it now. When I came 
here I had no thought of participating in debate 
at all, but particularly I intended to keep silence 
this winter, but, since I have seen our Northern 
friends so backward and delicate, I have determined 
to express my own views and declare my own 
sentiments, and risk the effects. For that purpose 
I have drawn up a resolution calling for informa- 
tion as to the slave trade in the District of Colum- 
bia, which, among other things, calls for a state- 
ment of the number of slaves who have murdered 
themselves within that District during the last five 
years, after being sold for foreign markets, and the 
number of children who have been murdered by 
their parents during said time, under the apprehen- 
sion of immediate separation for sale at a foreign 
market, and the amount of revenue collected on 
sale of licenses to deal in human flesh and blood. 
1 showed the resolutions to several friends, who 
advise me not to present them on two accounts : 



72 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

first, that it will enrage the Southern members; 
secondly, that it will injure me at hom.e. But I 
have determined to risk both, for I would rather 
lose my election at home than suffer the insolence 
of these Southerners here. Mr. Fletcher, of Bos- 
ton, is the only man that consents to my present- 
ing the resolutions. This morning a friend called 
on me to show me a scurrilous attack made upon 
me in the Government paper of to-day. I am in 
some doubt whether to call the public attention to 
it or not. However, it seems to render a full 
declaration of my sentiments more necessary and 
proper." 

Only two weeks in Congress, a stranger among 
men of years of experience in legislation and poli- 
tics, yet ready to throw down the gauntlet to 
slavery, knowing that such an act would call down 
upon his head the rage of all the South, and warned 
that it would weaken him at home! Only two 
weeks in Congress and those passed in silence, yet 
already marked for abuse by the journals of the 
opposition! The words quoted were embodied in 
no stump speech, newspaper communication nor 
even in a confidential message to a friend. It 
was a sacred pledge made with his own con- 
science, and spread upon a page which no eye 
was intended or expected to see. Nor was it 
the ignorant bravado of inexperience, destined to 
disappear at the first danger, but a solemn self- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 73 

dedication, to which he never for a moment proved 
false. Almost ten years later, on the 4th day of 
December, 1848, after meeting the daily tempta- 
tion and demoralization of life in Congress long 
and constantly enough, to have lost at least the 
freshness and sentiment of the debutant, he wrote 
in his journal: 

" News from Columbus shows that our friends, 
the Free-soilers, are separating from each other. 

Mr. writes me that he shall attend no more 

Free-soil meetings, and seems to think that the 
party will, of course, dissolve into its original ele- 
ments in consequence of his leaving it. I am 
disgusted with the vanity and want of principle 
that characterize all his thoughts. Men appear 
to think of nothing, talk of nothing, and act with 
no purpose, but that of party. Attempts are made 
to get me to go into the Whig party in order to 
secure an election to the Senate. Thank God, I 
have never for one moment entertained the desire 
of such an election at the sacrifice of principle." 

Could anything ever recorded in the way of a 
declaration of motive and intent, give a clearer 
picture of the maker? Honesty, singleness of pur- 
pose, fidelity to his principles and to himself — all 
these stand out in every line, and one may labori- 
ously read every sentence of every speech made by 
Joshua R. Giddings, in Congress, or upon the 
stump, from the time he penned these first quoted 



74 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

words, until his earthly account was closed, and find 
no sentiment inconsistent with the high and unsel- 
fish standard which he then set for himself. He 
loved approbation, — and what man does not? — yet 
he never condescended to the most harmless act of 
the demagogue; he loved place and power, and 
both might have been his in barter for his silence ; 
no place of all in the gift of an American President 
or Congress, but would have been held well paid 
for by the vacancy of his seat, yet he never had an 
ambition that he did not bid to get behind him, 
that he might go forward in poverty and through 
contumely preaching to men the gospel of justice 
and humanity. 

From day to day this journal of Mr. Giddings* 
is full of bits of naif and characteristic criticism of 
men and methods , which it is difficult to resist quot- 
ing. He tells with quiet humor how the respecta- 
bility of a Washington man while living, is judged, 
after his death, by the number of carriages which fol- 
low him to the grave, and how, also, many of these 
carriages go empty. Then he says : *' If a mem- 
ber of Congress dies, the usual procession is con- 
stituted of all the hacks in the city, which are 
employed to follow the hearse whether they have 
any passengers in them or not. A monument, 
costing sometimes ;^300 or ^400, is also erected, 
and the whole expense is paid from the public 
treasury, including 1^150 to the family where the 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. 75 

member dies," After telling of the funeral of a 
member which occurred at Baltimore in 1837, when 
" members of both Houses took seats in the cars, 
followed the corpse to Baltimore, staid over night, 
had their dinners and wines, lodgings and break- 
fast, all at the expense of the Nation," he adds: 
"If members can go to Baltimore at the public 
expense, I do not see why they cannot take a trip 
to Philadelphia, or New York, or even go to Bos- 
ton or beyond the mountains." Subsequent events 
have justified this forecast. 

Mr. Giddings, himself a man of rare dignity, 
shows constant signs of displeasure at the lack 
of that quality in his fellows. He also laments 
the serious waste of time and of money in- 
volved in an adjournment over Saturday as well 
as Sunday, ' ' when hundreds of people are living 
in want, because Congress has not time to pass 
upon their just claims. " One more quotation from 
the pages of this diary relating to the impressions of 
those first days must suffice. On December loth he 
wrote : ' ' The subject of moving a petition regarding 
Haytian independence occupied the day. It is 
amusing and yet astonishing to see the views enter- 
tained by most of the members on the subject of 
abolition. At the South it is the general impres- 
sion that it is designed to create a general rebellion 
among the slaves, and have them cut their masters' 
throats. At the North they have no idea as to 



y^ JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

what constitutes abolition. Northern men seem 
to be afraid to come out and declare their senti- 
ments. They appear to feel great delicacy on the 
subject. Instead of stating the question of abolish- 
ing slavery in the District of Columbia, and the 
slave trade between the States, they keep at a dis- 
tance from the subject, and, as yet, no one has 
come forth, and, with plainness set forth the claims 
at the North and all seem afraid so to do." 

On the 29th of December Mr. Giddings spoke 
for the first time. He says: "The subject of 
granting pensions came up in debate ; it being a 
subject upon which I thought myself possessed 
of tolerable information, and the House being thin, 
I ventured for the first time to address the House. 
I expected to be greatly embarrassed and to have 
my voice tremble, but was surprised to find my 
voice full and to be able to make myself heard 
through the whole hall. I spoke but a moment, 
not intending to occupy time, but wishing to try 
my voice." 

On the nth day of December, Mr. Atherton, 
a New Hampshire, doughface, arose in his place 
and offered a series of resolutions denying the con- 
stitutional right of the General Government to in- 
terfere with slavery in the various States, 01' in the 
District of Coliwibia, denouncing persons who had 
forwarded anti-slavery petitions to the House, for 
endeavoring to accomplish, by indirect means, what 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 7/ 

could not be constitutionally done, and, finally, re- 
affirming more stringently the Pinckney resolution, 
providing that all petitions upon the subject of 
slavery be laid upon the table, without reading, ref- 
erence, printing, or debate. These are the measures 
which have passed into history as the ' ' Atherton 
gag resolutions." On the succeeding day they 
were put to a vote separately, and passed by a vote 
of one hundred and twenty-six yeas, to seventy- 
three nays, Mr. Giddings voting, as a matter of 
course, in the negative. This was the first impor- 
tant measure upon which he gave a vote. The 
diary entry of the nth says: "The rules were 
then suspended and Mr. Atherton arose to sustain 
his resolutions by a written speech, at the close of 
which he called for the previous question. Ex- 
citement now arose, . . hisses and murmurs 
of contempt for the ma/i and t/ie act became audi- 
ble. . . ." These italics, which are Mr. Gid- 
dings', convey very eloquently his own endorse- 
ment of the opinions expressed in those hisses and 
murmurs. He did not then write much ; he said 
nothing, only recording by his vote his estimation 
of the matter. Yet there is no question that his 
being brought thus face to face at the very outset 
of his career in Congress, with the arrogant as- 
sumption of the slave power, had much to do with 
inducing him to take instant and firm position as 



78 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

an avowed opponent of the system, its champions, 
and their Northern lackeys. 

On the evening of December 31st, Mr. Giddings 
attended a party given by Mr. Gules, to Whig 
Senators and Representatives. There he met, 
and talked with Adams, Clay, Preston, and other 
famous men. Already his few weeks' observation 
of Adams had made Mr. Giddings a devoted 
admirer of that great man. He notes in his 
account of the party, that he "took the earliest 
opportunity to engage in conversation with the 
venerable ex-President." Proceeding with the 
account of the entertainment, he describes the 
lavish luxury of the table, the profusion of wines, 
and the flow of wit and wisdom, closing with this 
philosophical comment: "The morality of these 
parties may well be doubted, but they appear 
necessary, in order to bring the members into that 
acquaintance with each other which is desirable." 

On New Year's day Mr. Giddings, conforming to 
the usual custom, paid a number of formal calls. 
He describes minutely his reception at the White 
House, with all the splendor of its semi-royal 
appointments, which was naturally impressive to 
one so recently removed from the simplicity of the 
West. He then made some unimportant calls, 
concluding his day with one which must be 
described in his own words: "Still one more call 
remained to be paid on this New Year's day. I 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 79 

had been invited to call upon our venerable ex- 
President. To his residence I now bent my way. 
In a retired mansion we found him and his lady, 
surrounded by some dozen friends, who showed, in 
their countenances and conversation, that they had 
called in reality, to pay their respects to this great 
man, whose name will hereafter fill the brightest 
page of American history. Here we met and 
saluted the aged statesman, in a large and comfort- 
able drawing room, with his matronly lady, her 
sister, a daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. 
We found him in the midst of a truly domestic 
circle; no noise or bustle interrupted that expres- 
sion of good will which we all felt toward him. 
His countenance glowed with benevolence, and 
kindness towards his friends around him. We 
were introduced to the members of his fam- 
ily, sat awhile, and, after some interesting con- 
versation, we left this interesting man, feeling 
that we had seen a specimen of true greatness con- 
nected with genuine republican simplicity. Mr. 
Adams belongs to no local district, to no political 
party, but to the Nation and to the people; he is 
elected by his district in Massachusetts, comes here 
with his family during the sessions of Congress, 
and keeps house by himself. While in the House 
of Representatives, he consults with no one, takes 
the advice of no one, and holds himself account- 
able to no one but the Nation. He belongs as 



80 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

much to the former age as to this — perhaps he 
may be said to be the connecting hnk between the 
former generation and the one now in active hfe." 
So closely does this description apply to the atti- 
tude taken by Mr. Giddings in his Congressional 
career, so evident is the admiration which is shown 
in every word which he wrote regarding Mr. 
Adams, that we have good warrant for believing 
that the influence of the elder man was decisive in 
determining the course of his young friend. 
Friends, indeed, they soon became. Their first 
meeting, their gradual warming to each other, and 
the full measure of their reciprocal affection are 
amply witnessed by Giddings letters and journals. 
In an autograph album kept by Mr. Giddings during 
the year 1844, and written in a trembling, almost 
illegible hand, are the following lines, embody- 
ing an expression of true and sentimental affection, 
rarely felt and more rarely expressed, between men. 
They have never been published, and the transcript 
here given is exact and entire. 

TO JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 

OF JEFFERSON, ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO. 

When first together here we meet 

Askance each other we behold 
The bitter mingling with the sweet. 

The warm attempered by the cold; 
We seek, with searching ken to find 

A soul congenial to our own, 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 8l 

For mind, in sympathy with mind, 

Instinctive dreads to walk alone. 
And here, from regions wide apart, 

We came our purpose to pursue, 
Each with a warm and honest heart, 

Each with spirit firm and true. 
Intent, with anxious aim to learn. 

Each other's character we scan. 
And soon the difference discern 

Between the fair and faithless man. 
And here, with scrutinizing eye, 

A kindred soul with mine to see 
And longing bosom to descry 

I sought, and found at last — in thee. 
Farewell, my friend ! and, if once more 

We meet within this hall again, 
Be ours the blessing to restore 

Our country's, and the rights of 7nen. 

John Quincy Adams, 

of Quincy, Massachusetts. 
H. R. U. S., Washington, 17 June, 1844. 

Anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill. 

When these hnes were written Adams was 
nearly seventy-eight years of age, too sober, too 
wise, also too great a man to pen a page of verses 
in idle compliment. He loved the younger man 
whom he had taught so much, and that love was 
returned with a warmth and veneration that made 
the friendship between these two — representing 
the antipodes of education, training, experience, 
and social surroundings — one of the most remark- 
able and touching in history. Simply the recog- 
nition of mutual honesty, sincerity, devotion, and 
power, in connection with a cause which both held 
sacred ; simply the standing together against 



82 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

"the whips and scorns of time; 
the oppressers' wrong; the proud man's contumely," 

had been sufficient to overcome all the influences 
and circumstances which combined to render 
friendship or love between them a thing most un- 
likely. 

Although, as before stated, Mr. Giddings had 
once briefly addressed the House, his real debut 
was made on the 5th of January, 1839. His 
own account of the matter is given in full, for the 
reason that the speech then made was effectual 
in establishing him in the esteem of his colleagues, 
as a man of unusual boldness and ability, and be- 
cause the simple and unreserved statement gives 
an excellent key to his character. 

* ' Friday, January 4th. This day nothing oc- 
curred worthy of notice, except as its transactions 
connected myself with proceedings which may 
hereafter bring my name before the public. Mr. 
Jones, who claimed a seat here as delegate from 
Wisconsin, had been elected in 1836, served two 
years, as limited by the organic laws, and, at the 
expiration of his term, which was in October 
last, again appeared in the field as a candidate 
and was defeated. This defeat was mostly attrib- 
uted to his connection with the duel in which 
Mr. Cilley fell last winter in this city. After his 
defeat he came to this city and claimed to hold his 
seat in the House during the present Congress, 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 83 

urging that his time did not commence until De- 
cember, 1837, ^^^^ t^"^^t his service and receiving 
pay in 1836 were all in his own wrong. I merely 
believe his object to be the travel fees from Wis- 
consin and his /^r dt'ejn, which amount to about 
two thousand dollars, and think that he ought not 
thus to carry off the National treasure. I have 
tried to g-et some older member to introduce a 
resolution denying his right to compensation, 
which I know he has already drawn. But, as no 
older member will do it, I have determined to 
take it upon myself, and, thinking that justice to 
him required me to apprise him of my design, 
have written him a note, stating my intention, and 
conveyed it to him through the medium of the 
post-office. 

"Saturday, January 5th. I spent the whole 
morning in preparing to sustain the resolution 
which I intended to present to the House. I had 
yet many misgivings as to my success before that 
body; whether I should not be so much embar- 
rassed as to be unable to proceed. Mr. Jones is 
a professed duelist ; his conduct in the matter I 
considered disgraceful ; if I spoke I knew I should 
speak my mind as soon as I should become 
warmed with my subject. Many of the members, 
I knew, dared not speak as they thought, on ac- 
count of Mr. Jones' dueling character. Of this I 
entertained not the slightest fear ; all my appre- 



84 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

hensions were lest I should not succeed as well 
as I intended, in exposing what I deemed a gross 
abuse of the situation he held. I went to the 
House with fear and trembling. I had written 
Jones that I should bring forward the resolution, 
so now I could not retreat. The House was called 
to order and the clerk was reading the journal. I 
had my resolution written, and when the clerk had 
finished reading was on my feet with my* resolu- 
tion in my hand and called the Speaker's name, 
but he responded to the call of Mr. Mason, who 
sent to the chair a resolution almost in the very 
words of the one I held. I felt relieved from my 
embarrassment, and when the resolution was read, 
the Speaker remarked that he had a communica- 
tion from. Mr. Jones. The reading was called for. 
In it Mr. Jones stated that he had drawn his mile- 
age and pef diem, but on the evening previous had 
received a note from Mr. Giddings which he there- 
with transmitted to the Speaker, together with the 
funds he had drawn from the treasury. When my 
name was mentioned, all eyes were turned upon 
me ; I was a new member, and all seemed to look 
with astonishment at the course I had dared to 
take. Some of my friends came to me and 
enquired why I had done as I did ; others appeared 
to think me too diffident to carry out what I had 
commenced, and came to me to encourage and 
urge me forward. General Mason took the floor, 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 8$ 

of course. When he was speaking I was advised 
to withdraw and let the older members manage 
the matter. When General Mason was through I 
tried to get the floor and failed, Mr. Bouldin, of 
Virginia, obtaining it. I soon saw that he had no 
correct view of the subject, and felt somewhat 
emboldened. He spoke for half an hour, and 
when he ceased I strove for the floor again, but 
Mr. Wise obtained it, and I saw that Mr. Thomas, 
of Maryland, an old member, and one who spoke 
often, was determined to get it next, and of course 
I knew he would get it, as he is the leader of the 
Van Buren party, and a favorite of the Speaker. 
I went to him and requested the privilege of speak- 
ing before he did ; this he refused, and I deter- 
mined that, if I followed him, he should hereafter 
be at least a little careful in throwing himself be- 
fore me or in my way. My friends now came and 
urged me to insist upon having the floor, but, as 
I expected, Mr. Thomas obtained it. I took notice 
of his argument, and when he sat down I succeeded 
in getting the floor, and, to my utter surprise, 
found my voice full and clear. I felt a little em- 
barrassment, but cared nothing for that while my 
voice should appear natural. Having made my 
introduction, I proceeded to answer the argument 
of Mr. Bouldin. I had hardly stated the position 
he had taken, when he saw the light in which I 
was about to place him, and at once requested the 



86 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

floor to explain. I yielded ; he explained. I pro- 
ceeded in my argument, but in less than five min- 
utes Mr. Bouldin and Mr. Wise were both on 
their feet wishing to explain. Cries of "No!" 
"No!" were heard, but I yielded. By this time 
I had thrown off my embarrassment, and, when 
they resumed their seats I let fall a good-natured 
joke, which drew forth a burst of laughter. I 
proceeded to the argument of Thomas; he, too, 
was on the floor, and I refused to yield it. I pro- 
ceeded ; he again solicited the floor, and I yielded 
it. My friends now loudly remonstrated against 
my yielding the floor any more. Thomas ex- 
plained and sat down. I proceeded with a deter- 
mination to scorch him for his want of delicacy in 
not permitting me to precede him in the argu- 
ment. I took ample vengeance on him, and finally 
got through the argument with tolerable satisfac- 
tion to myself, and, I am told, to the satisfaction 
of my friends. " 

The effect of this speech upon Mr. Giddings 
himself and upon his fellow members is indicated 
in his journal entry of January 7th. He says: 
* * A member of Congress, when he comes unknown 
to Washington, attracts little attention among his 
fellow members. With citizens and officers of 
Government his official character is a sufficient 
recommendation to command their highest respect 
and constant attention. But with his fellow mem- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 8/ 

bers he attracts no notice whatever, until he 
makes some display of his powers, tact, or of po- 
litical management. I have now fairly made my 
debut and to-day I fancied myself, on entering the 
hall, greeted more warmly than heretofore; mem- 
bers w4io had previously barely paid the passing 
salutation, now came to my seat, with great polite- 
ness inquired after my health, and many of them 
congratulated me upon the favorable reception of 
my speech. ... I now felt that I had fairly 
entered upon the business of a member. I felt 
myself entitled to express my views more freely 
than I had heretofore done. Many of the most 
celebrated lawyers in the House and of the Na- 
tion, took occasion to express their high grati- 
fication at the manner in which I had * wound up ' 
(as they said) the chairman of the judiciary com- 
mittee." 

On the 2 1 St of January Mr. Adams created a 
decided sensation in the House, by arising to a 
question of privilege and giving a statement of his 
views on the subject of abolition. He said that 
he had lately received several letters threatening 
his life, and had decided it was proper to place him- 
self distinctly before the people in the matter. 
Permission being granted he explained that his 
general views squared with those of other aboli- 
tionists; that he favored the interdiction of the 
slave trade between the States, and the recognition 



88 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

of the independence of Hayti, but was not pre- 
pared to favor the abohtion of slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. He would, however, did he 
not doubt the constitutionality of such a measure, 
approve of the removal of the capital to some 
place where slavery did not exist. 

Mr. Giddings says of the matter: " His speech 
created a great sensation. It seemed to con- 
vince the South that Mr. Adams was not so 
great an enemy to them as they had supposed, 
and some of the Northern members appeared 
to think he had not been as strongly opposed 
to slavery as they had thought him to be; 
others said that he had but expressed the same 
views which they had always understood him 
to possess. Mr. Slade, of Vermont, who is the 
greatest Abolitionist in the House, seemed to 
be very apprehensive that the speech would have 
a bad influence on the subject of abolition. He 
drew up interrogatories to Mr. Adams, for the pur- 
pose of drawing from him further explanations, 
and submitted them to me. This I considered 
useless, having no hope that Mr. Adams would 
make further disclosures of his views to Mr. Slade 
than he had to the world. I am, however, fully 
of the opinion, from the language used by Mr. 
Adams, and the cautious manner in which he ex- 
pressed himself, that his want of readiness to 
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, is not 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 89 

owing to any doubt as to the power of Congress 
to do so; nor to any other reason other than a 
question as to the policy of such action. The dif- 
ficuhy that has often presented itself to my mind 
is, that if Congress should pass a law to abolish 
slavery in the District, before it could take effect 
the slaves would all be taken out of the District 
and the law would find none here to take effect 
upon. But, if Congress should first pass a law 
prohibiting the taking of any slave out of the Dis- 
trict, that would keep them here, and, when a law 
to abolish slavery should pass, it would have the 
effect to liberate from nine to ten thousand slaves. 
Of Mr. Adams' views beyond what he has pub- 
licly expressed, I know nothing, but these 
thoughts have often run through my own mind. 
I think, them worthy of serious reflection by the 
philanthropic." 

"Thursday, January 29. While in committee of 
the whole on the state of the Union members 
speak with perfect freedom. Indeed, it does not 
seem to be of any importance whether a speech 
made while in such committee has any relation 
whatever to the subject under debate. 
Seeing the wide range of debate it struck me as a 
favorable place to bring forward the subject of 
slavery, which is prohibited while in the House, 
For this purpose I digested and reduced to paper 



90 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

a plan for commencing an attack upon the slave 
trade in the District of Columbia. 

Mr. Giddings failed to obtain the floor, and was 
obliged for the time to defer his speech. 

On Wednesday, January 30, he made the fol- 
lowing journal entry: ''This day Mr. Slade, of 
Vermont, came to me with an expression of great 
anxiety in regard to the exposition which Mr. 
Adams had made of his views concerning slavery. 
He appears to apprehend great results from these 
disclosures. Not feeling any very serious appre- 
hensions on the subject, I told him that the opin- 
ions of Mr. Adams would pass off like the opinions 
of any other man. That I intended to give my 
own opinion as a counterbalance to that of Mr. 
Adams. He desired to know how I should bring 
the matter forward, and I told him how. He was 
at first incredulous as to the feasibility of my plan, 
but soon agreed that I was correct and, before he 
left, promised to make an effort himself, upon 
the same plan." 

Then follows a short description of a scene 
which excited Mr. Giddings' indignation to the 
highest pitch, put a keen edge upon his purpose, 
and had an effect in determining his future action : 
"This day a coffle of about sixty slaves, male and 
female, passed through the streets of Washington, 
chained together, on their way South. They were 
accompanied by a large wagon, in which were 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 9I 

placed the more feeble females and children of 
such tender years as to be unable to walk. A 
being, in the shape of a man, was on horseback, 
with a large whip in his hand, with which he oc- 
casionally chastised those who, through fatigue 
or indolence, were tardy in their movements. This 
was done in the day time, in public view of all 
who at the time happened to be so situated as to 
see the barbarous spectacle." 

" Monday, February 4th. This being petition day 
I had determined on raising a question as to the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
This I communicated to my friend Fletcher,''^ whcv 
was incredulous as to getting up the question, but 
pledged himself to sustain me provided I would 
get the subject before the House. At about 3 
o'clock the State of Ohio was called on for peti- 
tions. I obtained the floor, and, after presenting 
some others on various subjects, I brought for- 
ward one for the abolition of slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, and moved that it be referred 
to the committee on said District. The chair, at 
this time occupied by Mr. Briggs, of Massachu- 
setts, decided that the petition must lie on the ta- 
ble. From this decision I appealed, and the chair 
having stated the appeal, I obtained the floor and 
proceeded to argue the question of the prohibition 
of petition by resolutions of the nth and 12th of 

* Richard Fletcher, of Massachusetts. 



92 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

December. Mr. Garland, of Louisiana, called me 
to order. There was much uneasiness apparent 
among the members. The speaker, Mr. Polk, re- 
sumed the chair and desired me to state distinctly 
the motion I had made. This I did, when he pro- 
nounced me in order. I then proceeded with my 
remarks. I went on, mentioned the resolutions, 
and showed that they did not extend to the peti- 
tion under consideration. After this I pronounced 
the resolutions opposed to the Constitution and 
ipso facto void, and proceeded to demonstrate that 
position." After much confusion and technical 
skirmishing, Mr. Giddings, finding that he was 
actually blockading the House, withdrew his ap- 
peal from a declaration of the chair that he was 
out of order, and let the matter drop, having ac- 
complished his purpose in defining his own posi- 
tion and entering a protest against the outrageous 
Atherton gag and its predecessors. 

On the 7th of February, Mr. Clay, then a can- 
didate for the Presidency and under the party lash, 
made a speech in the Senate, attacking the Aboli- 
tionists in Congress and the country. Mr. Clay 
had, in certain youthful speeches, declared himself 
in favor of universal human liberty. In this dec- 
laration he was no doubt sincere, but the leaders 
of his party demanded as a condition of their sup- 
port in the Presidential race, that he should clear 
bis skirts of the imputation of being a sympathizer 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 93 

with the negro. The speech in question was the 
result; while it earned him the commendation of 
Calhoun and men of that ilk, it lost him much of 
the respect of the North and was a most unfortu- 
nate utterance. Mr. Giddings had at that time 
met Mr. Clay several times in company, and had 
once dined with him. There was between them 
no intimacy. Clay was the Senator from Ken- 
tucky, one of the foremost in the upper house, an 
exponent of popular opinions, an unsurpassed or- 
ator, the idol of a great constituency, and, in all 
particulars, one of the leading men of the day. 
Giddings was a Representative of but two months' 
standing, who had only become known as the ally 
of a weak and despised minority. The following 
words from the journal of the day will illustrate as 
well as any act of Mr. Giddings his fearless bold- 
ness in the cause of right and justice : ' ' My friend 
Fletcher came to me and gave me a description of 
the speech. He stated that Mr. Clay had said, 
substantially, that Congress had no right to abolish 
slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it were 
necessary for the accommodation of Congress, or 
the benefit of the people of the District. This was 
different from what I had before understood, and 
I knew would disappoint the expectations of the 
people whom I represent. I had publicly avowed 
my adherence to Mr. Clay for President, in prefer- 
ence to Mr. Van Buren, and I felt that the speech 



94 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

would place me at home in an attitude unexpected 
by me and by my friends. Before I left my seat 
therefore, I dispatched a note to Mr. Clay de- 
manding distinctly whether * he believed Congress 
to possess the right of abolishing slavery in this 
District ivJien no otJiei' reason existed for it than mere 
henevolence to the Jmvian family .' " 

Every effort was made by the friends of Mr. 
Clay to induce Mr. Giddings to withdraw his note. 
In conversation upon the floor of the House the 
latter stated that he regarded the speech as indis- 
creet and imprudent. Being charged, by a friend 
of Mr. Clay, with showing great assurance in crit- 
icizing such a man, Mr. Giddings retorted that 
he would not allow Mr. Clay, or any other man, to 
ridicule and misrepresent his constituents, and that 
iie would take the earliest opportunity to disabuse 
the public mind of the false impression conveyed. 
The result was that Mr. Clay, having called once 
in the House to see Mr. Giddings and failed to find 
him, came again, said that he had made the speech 
at the request and with the advice of Northern 
Whigs, and that he thought its declarations were 
sufficient to cover the question conveyed in Mr. 
Giddings' note. The latter disagreed with this and 
the gentlemen parted coldly, Mr. Clay having lost 
a most valued adherent. It is stated that, as a re- 
sult of this note, the Kentucky Senator modified 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 95 

his Speech very essentially in preparing it for pub- 
lication. 

On Friday, the I2th of February, Mr. Giddings 
took his most important step of the session. A 
bill was introduced in the House providing for the 
appropriation of $30,000 to build a bridge over 
the Anacosta river. 

There had, on the same day, come a petition 
from citizens of the District of Columbia, praying 
that no notice be taken of the thousands of anti- 
slavery petitions which had been presented to the 
House, denouncing them as * * seditious memorials," 
and their authors as ''fanatics," and praying that 
such petitions be not even received. This gave 
Mr. Giddings excuse and opportunity for doing 
what he had long wished — striking a blow at 
sfevery in the District. Hence he moved to strike 
out the enacting clause of the bill, and gave his 
reasons in a speech, portions of which are well 
worthy of quotation, and which is interesting as 
the first connected and distinct anti-slavery speech 
ever made by its author. He said: "But, sir, 
I wiir assign my reasons for believing that the seat 
of government will be removed. It is known, sir, 
that the slave trade, in its worst -and most abhor- 
rent forms, is being carried on here tc an alarming 
extent. (Here Mr. Giddings was called to order, 
but the chair decided him in order.) We are told 
by some honorable gentlemen, that the subject of 



96 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

its continuance cannot be discussed in the House ; 
that a dissolution of the Union would follow as the 
inevitable consequence of any interference with 
the traffic on the part of Congress. On the other 
hand, I have come to the conclusion that Northern 
men, who have from their infancy been bred up in 
the love of liberty, where every precept impressed 
upon their youthful minds, every principle of their 
matured years, has habituated them to think of 
the slave trade with disgust and abhorrence, to con- 
template it as only existing among barbarians and 
uncivilized nations, to look upon it with horror ; 
I say, sir, that it is my opinion that such men can 
never consent to continue the seat of government 
in the midst of a magnificent slave market. I say 
it distinctly to the committee, to the Nation, and 
to. the world, that Northern men will not consent 
to the continuance of our National councils where 
their ears are assailed, while coming to the capitol, 
by the voice of the auctioneer publicly proclaiming 
the sale of human, of intelligent beings." (Sev- 
eral gentlemen here called Mr. Giddings to order, 
and he was again sustained by the chair.) He then 
resumed: '*I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your 
cool and impartial decision of the question of 
order. I will remark that I was assigning my own 
reasons — not those of any other gentleman. I say, 
distinctly, that I have not commenced these re- 
marks with feelings of unkindness to any man, or 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 9/ 

to any part of this Nation, I have been induced 
to embrace the present opportunity by a deep and 
solemn sense of justice, which I think is due to the 
district which I represent, and to a large part of 
the Northern States. They, sir, feeling an honest 
abhorrence of the slave trade, have sent in their 
petitions against it. I have myself presented the 
petitions of many thousands of Northern freemen 
on the subject, but their petitions have been dis- 
regarded, and the voice of American freemen, in 
favor of liberty, has been silenced. Their repre- 
sentative sent here with authority to act for them, 
to speak their views, to express their wishes, has 
been bound, hand and foot, with a sort of legisla- 
tive straight-jacket, so far as the subject of this 
slave trade is concerned, and his lips have been 
hermetically sealed, to prevent him from a 
declaration of their views, and from demanding 
their rights. Sir, (in an undertone) upon this floor 
I have heard gentlemen — honorable gentlemen — 
say that those citizens who have thus petitioned 
this House, should be hanged if found in Southern 
States. I pass any such remarks; they were made 
under feelings of excitement and did not express 
the real feelings of their authors. But, sir, while 
the voices of Northern freemen are silenced upon 
this floor, and their Representatives here are not 
permitted to declare the sentiments of those who 
sent them, we are called on to make heavy appro- 



98 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

priations of th^ir money for the benefit of this 
District. Many thousands of our people have 
endeavored to express to this House their views of 
the slave trade as carried on here. We refuse to 
hear them; we treat their petitions with contempt, 
but, in answer, say ' Your money shall be taken 
for the improvement of this city, although it be 
a slave market ; we will not hear your objections 
to the slave trade, but we will tax you to build a 
slave market.' This, sir, is wrong; it is pal- 
pably wrong. But, sir, I was sa}nng that the 
.appropriation was for the benefit of this District 
principally; it is to be made for the benefit of the 
people of this District, and what is their language 
to those whose funds are now sought to be appro- 
priated? The language of the people of this Dis- 
trict is expressed in their memorials, lately pre- 
sented to both houses of Congress. In those me- 
morials the free and independent citizens who peti- 
tion us in regard to the slave trade of this District 
are termed 'a band of fanatics;' their petitions 
are termed 'seditious memorials;' their efforts 
to stop the inhuman and barbarous practice of 
selling men, women, and children, are termed 'foul 
and unnatural.' Congress is prayed not only to 
refuse a reading or reference of these petitions, 
but we are requested not to receive such petitions. 
This, sir, is the language of the people of this 
District toward those whom I am supposed to 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 99 

represent; whose sentiments on this subject of the 
slave trade I openly and unequivocally avow. I 
sir, have been honored with the high trust of rep- 
resenting the people thus stigmatized, and I would 
deem myself unworthy of the trust if I permitted 
such language to pass unnoticed. Honorable gen- 
tlemen have presented the memorials of the peo 
pie here in both houses of Congress, and have 
advocated the principles, repeated and enlarged 
upon the language used. Sir, under all this abuse, 
I am asked now to contribute from the funds of 
the people thus abused, to the improvement of 
this city and for the benefit of those who thus 
assail their motives and stigmatize their acts. I 
object to the appropriation, under these circum- 
stances. I protest against it and I repeat, that 
while this state of things remains, I shall be 
opposed to all appropriations in this District, not 
necessary for the convenience of Government. I 
take my stand here. I now avow my firm deter- 
mination to give my vote for no further appropri- 
ations for this District, until the voice of these 
petitioners be heard and acted upon, and their 
prayers granted or refused — I say no appropria- 
tions except such as are really necessary for the 
comfortable continuance of the Government. 

**I want to be understood and not misrepresented 
It is the slave trade to which I now allude ; not 
to slavery. That is another subject. On that I 



lOO JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

may at some other time give my views ; but let no 
man accuse me of now saying anything in regard 
to his right of holding his fellow man as property, 
or of now saying anything concerning it. What 
I have said and what I intend to say will refer to 
nothing but the slave trade. I intend to disarm 
my opponents of all cause in regard to the consti- 
tutional right or the power of Congress over the 
subject. I am aware of the feeling which gentle- 
men have on this subject, and I assure them of my 
intention not to say anything offensive to them, 
further than duty requires. I hope that, whoever 
may become excited, I may speak and act from the 
convictions of sober judgment. I once alluded to 
the statement of honorable gentlemen that we 
cannot interfere with the slave trade in this District 
without a dissolution of the Union. This threat, 
sir, I beg leave to say, I disregard. I will not 
condescend to argue the question of the dissolu- 
tion of the Union, for such reasons. I will leave 
that question to be discussed by those who deem 
the slave trade in this District of more importance 
than the continuance of the Union. But, should 
a dissolution take place, the appropriation now in 
question would surely be of little importance. 

I, sir, have alluded to the fact that, on the beau- 
tiful avenue in front of the capitol, members of 
Congress, during this session, have heard the harsh 
voice of the inhuman auctioneer, publicly selling 



Joshua' R. giddings. ioi 

human beings, while they were on their way to the 
capitol. They have also been compelled to turn 
aside from their path, to permit a coffle of slaves, 
males and females, chained to each other by their 
necks, to pass on their way to this National slave 

market." 

At this point Mr. Giddings' speech was brought 
prematurely to an end, as related in his diary: 

''After I had spoken a few moments, Mr. How- 
ard said he would call me to order. I demanded 
the question to be reduced to writing. The chair 
decided that I had the right to have it so reduced, 
and from this decision Mr. Howard appealed. 
Much debate and confusion followed, several mem- 
bers speaking at the same time, each calling the 
other to order, and each insisting that he was right. 
Much excitement prevailed, and the House became 
a scene of perfect confusion and uproar. Some 
appeared to enjoy this much; among these the 
venerable ex-President laughed most heartily, and, 
coming to my seat, advised me to insist upon my 
rights; not be intimidated by the course taken by 
the Southern men. This confusion lasted about 
one hour, and, as I suppose, for the purpose of 
restoring order, the chairman, without taking the 
vote of the committee on the appeal, decided that 
I was out of order. ... A vote was then 
taken on my motion, and carried, the enactmg 
clause of the bill being stricken out." 



102 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

The effect of such a bold stand, taken, with so 
great success, by a young member,may be imagined. 
The Southern men were furious; the doughfaces 
dumbfounded; the citizens of the District panic- 
stricken; the friends of the slave jubilant. Mr. 
Giddings was insulted on the floor of the House, 
abused by the Administration press, and implored 
by residents of the District to reconsider his deter- 
mination. A few men of the House congratulated 
and encouraged him. 

Giddings was then for the first time exposed to 
the fires of hatred and envy, the temptations of 
wily lobbyists and the scarcely less dangerous 
approbation of delighted friends, which he was 
destined to endure for more than twenty years, and 
from which he escaped unscathed, unspoiled, reso- 
lute, honest, and true as when he first came to 
Washington. He passed the Southern men who 
cut him in the House, with a contempt real as 
was theirs assumed; he put away from him the 
prize of personal popularity and party advancement, 
offered him on condition of adhesion to the party 
of slavery ; he assured the waiting delegations of 
citizens of the District that, if they would withdraw 
their offensive memorials, he would cease to 
oppose the particular bill in question, but would 
give no guaranty as to his future course. He met 
newspaper and personal assaults jpon his honesty 
of motive, with perfect dignity and absence of irri- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. IO3 

tation. In a word, he at once established himself 
in the affection of friends, made himself respected 
by his enemies, taught interested opponents that 
he could neither be driven by abuse nor led by 
bribes. The session was drawing to a close, he 
had spoken but thrice, yet his more than twenty 
years' service in the House changed the estimate of 
him thereafter only in degree — not at all in kind. 
Upon the threshold of Congressional life he had 
yet found a recognition that gave him a distinct 
claim upon the House. 

But little more than two weeks of the Twenty- 
fifth Congress remained, and that time was occu- 
pied in hurrying through appropriation bills and 
other formal business. But one further entry of 
the diary of Mr. Giddings remains to be quoted, 
and that not for its intrinsic significance, but 
because it shows that with all his aggressive bold- 
ness, with all his fearlessness he was a man of kind- 
ness of heart and of a sensitive, practical sympathy. 
The entry made on March 2d, the day preceding 
the adjournment of Congress, tells its own story : 

'*An incident occurred in my view that illus- 
trates the difficulty of obtaining justice from the 
Government. A man named Nye has claimed 
about six thousand dollars from the Government 
for several years, and has himself personally pressed 
the matter for some sessions past. During the 
last session Mr. Whittlesey, chairman of the com- 



104 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

mittee on claims, reported against it, although the 
Senate had reported in favor of it. Mr. Whittlesey 
was looked upon as an infallible authority on the 
subject of claims. Nye was put in jail for want of 
money, and suffered much. His claim again passed 
the Senate, and was referred to the House com- 
mittee on claims. Nye himself wrote an able 
review of Whittlesey's report, and pointed out its 
errors, but many things intervened to prevent the 
committee from passing on it until to-day. I 
agreed with two or three others that we would get 
together and pass upon this claim, provided that it 
were possible to get a quorum to the committee 
room. This we effected, and agreed to report the 
bill giving him his whole claim. This was done as 
late as 2 o'clock p. M. When we left the room, I 
was in front, and Nye was at the door. I told him 
we had agreed to report his bill for the amount 
claimed. He attempted to thank me, but tears 
choked his utterance, and I felt deeply myself, so 
much so that I found tears were running down my 
own cheeks, and unwilling that my weakness 
should be discovered, I averted my face to disguise 
my feelings from those passing by me in front. 
As I turned my face, my eye rested upon Mr. 
Chambers, our chairman, who, though a man of 
rough exterior, and who has been through many 
a bloody battle, was so wrought upon by Nye's 
feeling that he wept profusely." 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 10$ 

And so the Congress adjourned, and Mr. Gid- 
dings returned to his constituents to receive a wel- 
come which was well appreciated, as it was fully 
deserved. 

From this point no such accurate account 
of the exciting scenes through which Mr. Gid- 
dings passed as has thus far been given, will be 
possible ; such a relation would occupy more space 
than may be devoted to it, and beyond that, while 
the official records give sufficient data for an ac- 
count of the public acts of Mr. Giddings, there 
exists in no other years of his official life so reli- 
able and satisfactory an index to his private views, 
motives, and ambitions, as the much quoted jour- 
nal of the session of 1838-1839 gives. The free- 
dom with which matters apparently trifling, have 
been transferred to these pages from that journal 
needs no apology. The mental photograph fur- 
nished is as true a likeness of the Giddings of 1855 
as of him of 1839; the lines are deeper — there are 
marks of thought, struggle, and sorrow ; there are 
scars of conflict, but, in everything, it is only a 
deepening, not a change of feature. Had these 
journals been continuous, their value at this day 
would have been incalculable, but from 1839 to 
1849 we have an interval of ten years which leaves 
no personal record, save that found in an occasional 
letter or newspaper article — all else is official. 
During a portion of two sessions beginning in 1848 



I06 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

Mr. Giddings kept a second journal which has 
been preserved, and will be hereafter used, but 
even this, as it is the record of an older and busier 
man and member, lacks the spontaneousness, free- 
dom and detail of the earlier one ; it tells perhaps 
more tersely and correctly of events, but less of 
men and especially less of its author. 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 10/ 



V. 

The Twenty-sixth Congress, which convened in 
December, 1839, ^^"^^ ^^"^ which Mr. Giddings took 
his seat, was, as is invariably the case with the 
session preceding a Presidential election, a strong- 
ly partisan body, and one in which each party 
strove, with an immense show of zeal and indus- 
try, to do nothing, unless to avoid compromising 
itself upon any vital question, and to force its op- 
ponents to make for themselves such an injurious 
record, as might be useful against them in the com- 
ing campaign. Such legislative fencing is amusing 
to the galleries, but it is fatal to business, and the 
advocate of a measure, whether he be a lobbyist 
with a private bill to urge, or a legislator represent- 
ing, as did Mr. Giddings, a vital principle, has need 
of no small degree of patience and philosophy to 
submit to the inevitable with due calmness. The 
anti-slavery cause was very far from popular. 
Southern men did not hate it less or less openly 
oppose it; Northern men feared it more, as the 
time for nomination and election drew near. Mr. 



lOS JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

Riddle has well stated the political and social 
conditions of the time in these words: ''Seth 
M. Gates, of Genessee, New York, was a member 
of this Congress, of profound anti-slavery convic- 
tions, and completed the quartette — Adams, Slade, 
Giddings, and Gates. Many Northern Whigs 
sympathized, but none stood by or voted with 
them on slavery issues. Public morals were at a 
low ebb. Peculation and defalcation marked the 
civil service, as never before or since, as Wv. now 
know. Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, proclaimed 
in the Senate, in 1817, that governments are not 
bound by moral law. This had been reaffirmed 
by Calhoun, and was illustrated by the course of 
men in office. The Democrats charged the Whigs 
with affiliation with abolition, and pointed to the 
four gentlemen named above, as of their party. 
To parry this Mr. Clay, in the Senate, claimed that 
the leading writers in defense of slavery were 
Whigs, and cited a work exposing the fallacy of 
abolition, the review of Channing, "Abolition a 
Sedition"; "Thoughts on Domestic Slavery," and 
other valuable aids to human progress. Again he 
received the fatal commendation of Mr. Calhoun. 
The Florida war lingered ; the Maroons found 
shelter in the unconstitutional everglades. The 
United States entered into an alliance with the 
bloodhounds of Cuba, and American soldiers were 
led by dogs. Petitions against this mode of war- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 10^ 

fare could not penetrate the moral atmosphere of 
the House. They accumulated in the Senate and 
the Whigs scored one against Mr. Van Buren." 

In July, 1837, th^ slaver Aviistad, laden with 
negro slaves, sailed from Havana, for a point on 
the southern coast of Cuba; the slaves arose in a, 
body, killed the captain and a number of the crew, 
gained control of the vessel, and ordered the 
owners, who were on board, to steer the ship for 
Africa. Relying upon the ignorance of their cap- 
tors and the fogginess of the weather, the Span- 
iards headed, instead, for the coast of the United 
States, making a landing at the eastern extremity 
of Long Island. An officer of the coast surve)^ 
took possession, and began proceedings by a libel 
for salvage, against both vessel and cargo. This 
suit was such as to bring the status of the negro 
slave distinctly to an issue before the court. The 
Spanish minister claimed the negroes as criminals, 
and their owners demanded their delivery as run- 
away property. Pending all these comflicting 
claims, the blacks were thrown into jail and kept 
in close confinement. Was ever a more anomalous, 
case ? The Spanish government, in claiming an 
extradition, admitted moral and civil responsi- 
bility ; the owners, — Spanish citizens, — confounded 
this claim by demanding possession of mere chat- 
ties, and the American libelant proceeded pre- 
cisely as though he had saved a cargo of cotton. 



no JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

The President favored the extradition claim, and, 
so confident was he that the court would sustain 
it, that he sent a United States man-of-war to 
New Haven, with orders to take the negroes from 
the custody of the civil officers, so soon as judg- 
ment was rendered, before an appeal could be 
made by their counsel, and deliver them to the 
Spanish authorities. This was the first cause of 
the kind which had ever been tried in the North, 
it having always been customary to hustle cap- 
tured negroes to the South, and try them, as an- 
other has said, ** before a jury of his peers." Mr. 
Adams at once saw his duty and opportunity, and 
introduced a resolution inquiring of the President 
why these men, though charged with no crime, 
were thus im.prisoned. The resolution was lost, 
though it accomplished its purpose of placing the 
slavery element of the House again on record. 
After a prolonged trial the prisoners were liber- 
ated. This was the first important judicial victory 
won by the friends of the negro in the United 
States. 

During the Presidential campaign of 1840 Mr. 
Giddings was placed in a peculiar and uncom- 
fortable position. Ostensibly a Whig, he was 
never really a party man in the ordinary sense of 
the word. His constituency was first anti-slavery 
then Whig, in sentiment, and he held the same 
position. He was no fanatic, and recognized the 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. Ill 

importance of proper tools with which to do his 
work ; he knew that, in order to do anything sub- 
stantial in the cause of abolition he must work 
through a party organization. The Democrats he 
recognized as hopelessly committed to slavery; in 
the Whig party he saw the possibility of regenera- 
tion. In this he differed from the Abolitionists, 
who had given up hope of attaining substantial 
results through Whig agency, and nominated a 
Presidential ticket of their own. Mr. Giddings 
recognizing the impossibility of electing this ticket, 
and the practical necessity of securing at least the 
lesser evil, supported Harrison, and thus bitterly 
disappointed the Anti-slavery party. His treat- 
ment by Harrison after election was not such as to 
give him any great personal pleasure in the success 
of that gentleman. 

The greater portion of the Twenty-sixth Con- 
gress had passed before Mr. Giddings had oppor- 
tunity to make any important effort in opposition 
to slavery. It w^as during the second session, and 
on the 9th day of February, 1841, that the calling 
up of a bill in the committee of the whole, appro- 
priating ^100,000 for the benefit of such Seminole 
chiefs as would surrender and remove to the West, 
gave him this opportunity. He then delivered 
his first elaborate set speech, and one which may 
be considered worthy to rank with any of his life. 
He showed that the refusal of the Seminoles to 



112 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

migrate was accounted for by the fear that the 
negroes, who had so long constituted a part of their 
tribe, would be seized by the Creeks ; that the de- 
sire to capture these negroes was the sole cause of 
an unrighteous war, and the same desire inspired 
the measure then introduced. He was called to 
order under the Atherton gag rule ; the chairman 
pronounced him in order. He was called to order 
for irrelevancy, but again sustained. The burden 
of his argument was that, laying aside all question 
regarding slavery as an institution, the United 
States could not wage a war in its behalf He 
showed how lawless Georgians had crossed the 
border, seized and enslaved free men. He uttered 
(and this short quotation will give an idea of the 
tone of his speech), among others, the following 
words: "And, sir, our army was put in motion 
to capture negroes and slaves. Our officers and 
soldiers became slave catchers, companions of the 
most degraded class of human beings who inhabit 
that slave-cursed region. With the assistance of 
bloodhounds they tracked the flying bondman 
over hill and dale, through swamp and everglade, 
until his weary limbs could sustain him no longer. 
Then they seized him, and, for the bounty of ;^20, 
he was usually delivered over to the first white 
man who claimed him. Our troops became expert 
in this business of hunting and enslaving mankind 
I doubt whether the Spanish pirates, engaged in 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. II3 

the same employment on the African coast, are 
more perfect masters of their vocation." Beyond 
the condemnatory satire and bitter irony sug- 
gested by this extract, the speech was a careful 
and logical argument, based upon a perfect mas- 
tery of the subject, replete with apt quotations, 
thoroughly digested, and entirely conclusive. Mr. 
Giddings was constantly interrupted ; the House 
was in the wildest confusion. Southern members, 
and the delegate from Florida arose in turn, os- 
tensibly to answer Mr. Giddings, in reality to cover 
him, Mr. Adams, Mr. Slade, and the cause they 
represented, with the vilest abuse, quite unmixed 
with argument. Thompson, of South Carolina, a 
Whig, became alarmed for his party, and said that 
the Whigs were not responsible for the utterances 
of the obscurest of the obscure individuals in their 
ranks. Mr. Giddings replied that it was not in 
the power of Mr. Thompson to assign him a place. 
It would be quite all he could do to choose his 
own. That the gentleman knew very well that 
neither Mr. Giddings' constituents nor his own 
conscience would allow him to seek redress for in- 
sults, after the barbarous fashion of the South, and 
quoted a saying of a veteran in the service of his 
country, who, grossly insulted by another for the 
purpose of evoking a challenge, as he wiped his ene- 
my's spittle from his face, replied: "Could I as 
easily wipe your blood from my soul, you should not 



114 JOSHUA R. GIDDIXGS. 

live an hour. " A Southern member, Alford, of 
Georgia, rushed toward Mr. Giddings, intending to 
assault him, but was placed under arrest. Down- 
ing, of Florida, was filthily abusive, but was not 
complimented with a word of reply. A day or 
two afterward he addressed Mr. Giddings in the 
presence of a number of gentlemen. The latter 
refused to recognize the bully, and warned him 
never to speak to him again, save upon official bus- 
iness. 

President-elect Harrison was greatly annoyed on 
account of this speech. When Mr. Giddings called 
to pay his respects, h:^ was so coldly received as 
to prevent his repeating the visit, and one of the 
first acts of Harrison's Presidential career was to 
reward Thompson's insolence with the Mexican 
mission. The Twenty-sixth Congress may be 
thus dismissed. 

President Harrison called an extra session of 
Congress to oe convened in May, 1841. Before 
that time he died and Tyler took the oath of office. 
Then came an evil day for the Wliig party, and 
the session was rendered remarkable by the attacks 
made upon the best men of the House, John 
Quincy Adams and Joshua R. Giddings, in the 
interest of the slave-holding power. Upon the 
organization of the House, Wise, of Virginia, 
moved the adoption of the old rules; Adams 
moved that the twenty-first rule — the Atherton 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I 15 

crag — be exccDted. A warm debate followed, in 
which Giddings took a prominent part, and, we are 
told, from that day he was not recognized by a 
dozen Southern members. Mr. Adams' resolution 
Avas laid upon the table. 

In January, 1842, Mr. Adams, having presented 
petition after petition to the House, all directed 
against slavery, but ingeniously worded to evade 
the twenty-first rule, presented one from Southern 
citizens, denouncing him as a monomaniac, and 
praying for his removal from the committee on 
foreign relations. From this he sought to defend 
himself, but the confusion of the House — such as 
had never before been known — made this almost 
impossible. For minutes at a time his voice was 
inaudible. During all this scene Gates, of New 
York; Slade, of Vermont, and Giddings, of Ohio, 
were the only members of all the House who 
stood by and defended him. At last he was fairly 
drowned out, and comparative order was only re- 
stored, when he abandoned his defense and pro- 
ceeded to present other petitions. Among these 
was one signed by Benjamin Brewster and forty- 
six citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying 
for the dissolution of the Union "on the ground 
of the great inequality of benefits enjoyed by the 
different sections. " This Mr. Adams moved be 
referred to a select committee, with instructions to 
report the ' reasons why its prayer should not be 



Il6 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

granted. Marshal, of Kentucky, offered resolu- 
tions censuring Adams in the severest manner for 
presenting such a petition. A motion to lay these 
on the table was defeated, Adams himself voting 
against it. Then followed a debate which occupied 
the House from the 24th of January until the 7th 
of March. During its continuance Mr. Adams 
made one of the most remarkable defenses ever 
known in the House, and procured the rejection 
of Marshal's resolution by a vote of one hundred 
and six to ninety-three. During this debate 
Adams had spoken for three days in terrible ar- 
raignment of slavery, when he was asked by a 
Southern member, how long it would be before he 
would conclude. He answered: ''I think I may 
finish in about ninety days.'' Such was his spirit. 
Yet how nearly alone he stood, when a call for a 
meeting of Whigs to devise means for his defense 
brought only eight men to Mr. Giddings' room ! 

Three weeks after this victory, Mr. Giddings pre- 
sented a petition from citizens of Austinburg, 
Ohio, praying for an amicable division of the 
Union, separating the free from the slave States. 
He made the same motion for its disposal which 
Mr. Adams had made in the case of the Haver- 
hill petition. The House refused to receive the 
petition, declaring it disrespectful, and a futile at- 
tempt was made to secure a declaration that, there- 
after, the presentation of such a petition should 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 11/ 

ipso facto constitute such an act of disrespect as to 
subject the member making it to censure. So the 
matter dropped. 

It seemed, however, that Mr. Giddings was not 
to escape the censure of the House for a length of 
time. During the winter of 1842 there came up 
again a famihar question of international law be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States. The 
brig Creole sailed from Hampton roads for New 
Orleans, with a cargo of slaves; these rose upon 
the crew, compelled the vessel to be sailed to Nas- 
sau, and landed, free men. Mr. Webster made the 
paradoxical demand of England, that the negroes 
be delivered up ''as mutineers and murderers, and 
the recognized pivperty of citizens of the United 
States.'' This Great Britain refused to do, hold- 
ing that property in human beings was not recog- 
nized in international law, and that the negroes 
were not murderers, as they were justified in kill- 
ing their captors. Mr. Giddings arose in his place 
on the 2 1st of March and presented a series of 
resolutions which declared, in effect: that prior 
to the adoption of the Constitution the several 
States had complete power over slavery within their 
own borders, and surrendered none of it to the 
Federal Government by the adoption of the Con- 
stitution ; that they did surrender to the General 
Government all power on the high seas ; that 
slavery, being an abridgement of human rights, 



Il8 JOSHUA R. GIDDIXGS. - 

existed by force of municipal law, and must hence 
be confined to the jurisdiction of the State which 
created it ; that a ship, when it leaves the waters 
of a State and enters upon the high seas, ceases 
to be under the laws of that State, but is, with the 
persons on board, under the laws of the United 
States; that when the Creole left the jurisdiction 
of Virginia, the slave laws of that State ceased to 
be of force over the persons aboard; that when 
such persons asserted their personal rights, they 
violated no law of the United States, and all at- 
tempts to re-enslave them were unwarranted by 
the Constitution or law of the United States, and 
incompatible with National honor ; that all at- 
tempts to place the coast slave trade under the 
protection of the Government were subversive of 
the rights of the people of the free States, injuri- 
ous to their feelings, unauthorized by the Consti- 
tution, and prejudicial to the National character. 

The effect of the presentation of these resolu- 
tions was almost beyond our appreciation at this 
day. No blow so boldly and fearlessly directed 
at slavery had ever been struck in Congress ; no 
man had ever dared to take so great a risk of 
political ruin and bodily injury. Those were the 
most fiery days of the slave domination. Mr. 
Giddings had scarcely ceased to speak, before a 
Southern member approached the aisle where he 
was standing and violently attempted to push 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I I9 

him out of it. As Mr. Giddings turned around 
to see who his assailant was, the latter passed 
close by him, with his right hand inside his vest, 
apparently taking hold of his bowie knife. He 
came back within four feet of Mr. Giddings, and 
placed himself in a menacing attitude directly in 
front of him. Mr. Giddings inquired : ''Did you 
push me?" looking him directly in the eye. "I 
did," was the reply. "Intentionally?" asked Mr. 
Giddings. "Yes." " For the purpose of insult?" 
demanded Mr. Giddings. "Yes," was again the 
answer. "Well, sir," replied Mr. Giddings, **we 
are in the habit of leaving those men who wanton- 
ly insult others, to the contempt of public opin- 
ion." By this time the friends of the member- 
interfered, and led him from the hall. 

Black, of Georgia, approaching with a cane 
raised to strike, challenged a repetition of one ex- 
pression made by Mr. Giddings; his request was 
promiptly and emphatically complied with, when 
considerate friends removed him from the hall ; 

Dawson, of Georgia, arose and shouted, "D n 

him, I'll shoot him," but made no movement to 
carry his threat into effect. The previous ques- 
tion was moved ; a motion to lay the resolutions 
upon the table was made and lost. Holmes, of 
South Carolina, began a speech with the words: 
"Certain topics, like certain places, are sacred: 

' Fools rush in where anirels fear to tread.' " — 



I20 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

After this promising beginning he was cut off 
by a reminder that the previous question had been 
moved. The previous question was about to come 
to a vote. Mr. Everett, of Vermont, expressed 
''his utter abhorrence of the fire-brand course of 
the gentleman from Ohio." Several requests to 
be excused from voting were made on the ground 
that the subject was of too grave importance to be 
disposed of so summarily. Mr. Caleb Gushing 
viewed the resolutions as " a British argument, and 
an approximation to a treasonable view of the sub- 
ject." Mr. Giddings declared that he had distinctly 
stated that the resolutions were important and that 
he merely desired to lay them before the House, 
and rather than have so hasty a vote taken upon 
the subject he would withdraw them. 

But the sensitive honor of the slavocrats was 
too keenly hurt by the plain language of the reso- 
lutions to permit of dropping the matter at such a 
stage. Mr. Botts, of Virginia, asked and ob- 
tained leave to offer a resolution, saying that, as he 
intended to move the previous question upon its 
adoption, he would refrain from making any re- 
marks. He then presented the following pream- 
ble and resolutions : 

** Whereas, The Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, the 
member from the Sixteenth Gongressional District 
of the State of Ohio, has this day presented to the 
House a series of resolutions touching the most 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 121 

important interests connected with a large portion 
of the Union, now a subject of negotiation between 
the United States and Great Britain of the most 
deHcate nature, the result of which may eventually 
involve those nations, and perhaps the whole civ- 
ilized world, in war ; and, 

''Whereas, It is the duty of every good cit- 
izen, and particularly the duty of every selected 
agent and representative of the people, to discoun- 
tenance all efforts tiJ^-ere^e excitement, disaffec- 
tion, and divisii^if among the p^ple of the United 
States; and,-'' ___ -""^'"' ^x, \ 

''Whereas, Mutiny and murder are in the said 
9«^es of rcsolutions-}w.stified and approved in terms 
shocl>iivg to all sense of la\V, order/land humanity, 
the tjfepjd^lT^ of all which r^quire^ (rom this House 
an id^i«€4iate,^and~unequii^ocal/ expression of its 
senti^li^t^Wh^refore^""'^^- ' 

''RcS^c'ed, ThaFThis^ouse dissents from, and 
emphaticall;^:condercHis the propositions contained 
in the-said resc^dtion, whicli favorably prejudge 
and excuse .^n act . of unquestionable homicide ; 
justify and defend, without-a denial of the alleged 
facts, parties' cliatged^ith cold-blooded murder; 
instigate, by a pledge of legislative protection and 
indemnity, crimes which may involve a large por- 
tion of our common country in rapine and mas- 
sacre, and the whole of it in tumult, affliction, and 
disgrace ; wantonly interfere with the legitimate 



122 JOSHUA R. GIDDIXGS. 

proceedings of another branch of the Government 
and its guardianship of the Nation's rights and 
honor ; and invite to treasonable leagues those 
who may be disposed to levy war against the 
United States, holding out promises of adhering 
to their enemies, and giving them aid and com- 
fort. 

^'Resolved, That this House holds the conduct 
of the said member as altogether unwarranted and 
unwarrantable, and deserving the severe condem- 
nation of the people of this country, and of this 
body in particular." 

Mr. Botts moved a suspension of the rules and 
failed to obtain it, the vote being 128 to 68. Ohio 
being regularly in order, Mr. Weller, of that State, 
offered Mr. Botts' resolution and moved the pre- 
vious question, in order to cut off debate. 

The speaker ruled that Mr. Giddings was en- 
titled as a matter of privilege to make his defense 
at once, but the House reversed the ruling and the 
previous question was seconded. Mr. Giddings 
desired a postponement for two weeks, to permit 
of his preparing a defense ; this was refused. He 
was offered the privilege of a defense upon condi- 
tion of making it then and there, but with great 
dignity refused to bargain for his constitutional 
rights. At last there appeared to be a unanimous 
voice of the House in favor of hearing the defense, 
and, urged by his friends, Mr. Giddings said: 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I 23 

''Mr. Speaker, I stand before the House in a pe- 
culiar position , " when Mr. Cooper, of 

Georgia, interposed an objection to his being heard. 
He then took his seat, and, although the objection 
was immediately withdrawn, refused to resume. 
The resolution of censure was then adopted by a 
vote of 125, to 69. 

On the same day Mr. Giddings sent to the 
National Intelligencer the following communica- 
tion : 
To the reporter of the Intelligencer : 

When I rose so often during the confusion of the 
proceedings of the House this day, and v/as so 
often called to order, the last time by Mr. Cooper, 
of Georgia, I had written, and desired to state to 
the House, what follows : 

" Mr. Speaker : — I stand before the House in a 
peculiar situation. It is proposed to pass a vote 
of censure upon me, substantially for the reason 
that I differ in opinion from the majority of the 
members. The vote is about to be taken without 
giving me time to be heard. It would be idle for 
me to, say that I am ignorant of the disposition of 
the majority to pass the resolution. I have been 
violently assailed in a personal manner, but have 
had no opportunity of being heard in reply. I do 
not now stand here to ask any favor or to crave 
any mercy at the hands of the members. But, in 
the name of an insulted constituency, — in behalf 



124 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

of one of the sovereign States of the Union, in be- 
half of these States and the Federal Constitution — 
I demand a hearing, agreeably to the rights guar- 
anteed to me, and in the ordinary mode of pro- 
ceeding. I accept of no other privilege. I will 
receive ho other courtesy." 

The happiness of the advocates of slavery, in 
and out of Congress, already great at the humilia- 
tion of their fearless enemy, was increased by his 
resignation, which followed his censure as a matter 
of course. He returned to Ohio, and was received, 
not as a punished wrong-doer, but as a champion 
who had maintained his cause in the lists against a 
multitude of opponents, and deserved the praise, 
the encouragement, and the vindication of his 
constituents. At every town through which he 
passed on his homeward way — at Cleveland, Paines- 
ville, Ashtabula, Jefferson, Chardon, — he met an 
ovation. Resolution after resolution was passed 
by various societies throughout the land, and by 
mass meetings called for the purpose of express- 
ing approval of his course and condemnation of 
his censure, and forwarded to the House. Gov- 
ernor Corwin named the 26th day of April as the 
time of holding a special election to fill the vacancy 
which the resignation had created. The result was 
a foregone conclusion. Though it was a special 
election and no one doubted the return of Mr. 
Giddings, his course had excited so great enthusi- 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. 125 

asm as to sectire for him a majority of about three 
thousand and five hundred, quite unprecedented 
in such a case. 

This majority, large as it was, would have 
been greater but for a very characteristic trick 
played by the Democrats of the district. They 
allowed it to be understood, until but a very few 
days before the election, that no opposition would 
be made to the return of the candidate. Then 
having previously made a careful and very quiet 
canvass, they placed a candidate in nomination, 
hoping to take the Whigs by surprise and secure 
a victory. On the morning of the day of election 
Mr. Weller, the same doughface who offered in 
the House the resolutions of censure prepared by 
his master, Mr. Botts, published and circulated 
throughout the Sixteenth district an attack upon 
Mr. Giddings, bitter and malignant as it was 
untruthful. With the fairness shown in the matter 
of the censure, Mr. Weller published this com- 
munication too late to permit of answer or denial. 
As a result of all their planning, the Democrats 
had the satisfaction of adding to themselves the 
mortification of defeat to the sting of rebuke. 
The effort to crush the intrepid Ohioan had failed, 
and not only failed, but had reacted upon its pro- 
jectors ; Giddings, coming back with all the pres- 
tige of an endorsement, was a man of National 
repute and weight. The blind fury of the South 



126 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

had sent home, bearing the stigma of a censure, 
the Congressman from a rural Ohio district. In 
five weeks its exultation was changed to humilia- 
tion, by his return reinforced, strengthened, doubly 
formidable. On Thursday, May 5, 1842, he took 
the oath ; seventeen years later, speaking before 
the New York anti-slavery society, in New York 
City, he said: 

"When I returned to that hall and marched up, 
to the altar, again to take tiie oath to maintain the 
Constitution of the country, I say to you, in the 
presence of Heaven, that I meant what I said. If 
I have failed to maintain that Constitution may 
God forgive me, for, if I have failed, it has been 
through my want of intelligence and not from any 
intention on my part. As I looked around upon 
those who, five weeks before had gazed upon me 
with such arrogance, and attempted to look into 
their faces, I could not catch the eye, in that vast 
hall, of one of them who could look me in the 
face. Then I felt the power of truth ; I felt the 
power of him, who, clothed in its panoply, main- 
tains those doctrines of freedom which lie so near 
to every human heart." 

Thus ended one of the most dark and dis- 
graceful chapters in the history of American legis- 
lation. Historians of the Southern inclining do 
not relish the subject. The journal of the House 
was toned down for the sake of decorum, and 



JOSHUA R. GIDUIXGS. 12/ 

Benton, in those remarkable historical productions, 
the Condensed Debates of the Thirty Years in 
Congress, though he devoted space to the Creole 
case, forgot to mention that G id dings was ever 
censured, ever resigned, or was ever returned after 
such resignation. 

The tone of the public press of the North, rep- 
resenting whatever party, was almost uniformly 
condemnatory of the high-handed course taken by 
the House. A large section was positive in its 
approval of Mr. Giddings' course; a lesser one, 
while affecting to doubt the wisdom of his action, 
as tending to inflame the South and affect diplo- 
matic negotiations, admitted his honesty and 
strongly disapproved of the censure. Even the 
Democratic press, when not servilely partisan, rec- 
ognized and admitted- the fact that the House had 
by its action exceeded the authority of the Consti- 
tution and far transcended all precedent To 
the last-named class belonged the New York Even- 
ing Post, and from its editorial comments upon the 
matter the following portion may well be ex- 
tracted : 

' ' In censuring Mr. Giddings for the doctrines 
laid down in his resolutions the House has over- 
stepped its powers. Mr. Giddings is not respon- 
sible to them for any opinions he may entertain 
or avow ; nor have they the right to reprimand 
him for not agreeing with them. They have no 



128 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

such right either derived from the Constitution or 
from the necessity of the case. They are not in 
any sense his masters, nor is he bound to submit 
his views to their censorship before he declares 
them. He is one of the representatives of a 
Northern State, and, speaking in the name of his 
constituents, he has a right to declare openly their 
views on any question of public policy, without 
being answerable to any one but them, and with- 
out the hazard of any fear of punishment, except 
their disapprobation. Any attempt to inflict upon 
him a mark of disgrace for the opinions he pro- 
fesses, is an attack not only upon the liberty of 
speech, but upon the rights of his constituents, — 
an invasion of the sovereignty of the State which 
he represents. 

"Mr. Giddings does well in resigning and ap- 
pealing to his constituents. We hope that they 
will send him back by a unanimous vote. If we 
lived among them, we w^ould lay aside all party 
preferences to vindicate the rights which have been 
so arbitrarily wrested from their representative." 

It remained for the utterly subservient Northern 
papers and for the Southern papers at large to 
throw to the winds all fairness, truth and common 
sense, and exult in the censure and resigna- 
tion; to assail Mr. Giddings and his defenders 
with abuse which no other vocabulary nearer than 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 29 

Billingsgate would render possible, and, finally, to 
subside into a mortified silence under the rebuke 
of his endorsement and re-election. 



130 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 



VI. 

Coming again to Washington — thus reinforced 
and approved — more than this, affirmatively di- 
rected by his constituents to continue his war 
against slavery and the slave power, and to re-pre- 
sent the resolutions which had evoked his censure — 
Mr. Giddings was in a position to do more effective 
work than ever before. He came, free from the 
suspicion of being a demagogue; he could speak 
as one having authority — the chosen and approved 
mouthpiece ot ninety thousand citizens. Then, 
too, the agitation of the sluggish pool of Northern 
sentiment had tended to crystallization, and while 
the definite and aggressive anti-slavery opinion was 
yet that of a minority, it was definite and aggress- 
ive as never before. So there was an unquestioned 
gain. 

The second session of the Twenty-seventh Con- 
gress closed in August, 1842. Up to that time 
Giddings was assiduous in his efforts to carry out 
the will of his constituents, by again introducing 
the then noted resolutions. But the majority, like 



JOSHUA R. GIDDIXGS. I3I 

the great cardinal, finding- the lion's skin too short 
pieced it out with that of the fox. Having failed 
to crush, as intended, the herald of everlasting 
truth and justice, they attempted by all manner of 
legislative arts and devices to prevent him from 
carrying out his intentions. Resolution days were 
systematically devoted to other purposes ; the call 
of States, which would have given him an oppor- 
tunity, never came. Thus he was eventually com- 
pelled to change his tactics, and when, on the 4th 
day of June, 1842, a proposition to reduce the 
army, embraced in a bill before the House, was 
opposed on the ground that war might grow out 
out of the Cirole transaction, he arose in support 
of the bill, made a complete defense of himself, 
arraigned the majority and the administration, and 
so clearly exposed the legal and constitutional fal- 
lacies of the slave holding evangelists that the ne- 
gotiation with England, regarding the Creole dam- 
ages, Vv^as dropped and never renewed. This 
speech, his last of importance during that session, 
was, in all respects — for clearness of statement, 
clearness of argument, and eloquence — one of the 
most notable of his many efforts upon the floor of 
the House. A short extract may profitably be 
transferred to these pages: 

"The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Gushing) asserts that ' we have a question of 
honor with the British government, growing out 



132 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

of the Creole question,' and therefore objects to a 
reduction of the army. I entertain a different 
opinion. I deny that this Government either has, 
or can, constitutionally have anything to do with 
this transaction. The Creole was engaged in the 
atrocious employment of importing slaves and we 
cannot honorably lend any encouragement or sup- 
port to ' that execrable commerce in human flesh.' 
Every principle of morality, of National honor, 
forbids that we should lend any aid or assistance 
to those engaged in traffic in the bodies of men, 
women, and children. If we prostitute our in- 
fluence in behalf of persons thus engaged, we shall 
dishonor ourselves and the people whom we repre- 
sent. Sir, I would not retain a single soldier in 
service to maintain this slave trade ; on the con- 
trary, I should rejoice if every slave shipped from 
our slave breeding States could regain his liberty, 
either by the strength of his own arms, or by 
landing on some British island. . . . But 
the honorable Secretary of State, speaking of these 
people, in his letter to our Minister, at London, 
refers to them as guilty of mutiny and murder. 
Had he made demand for them as murderers, or 
mutineers, the British government would, in all 
probability, have surrendered them, in order that 
they might suffer the penalty attached to those 
crimes, under our laws. But he has made no such 
demand. He merely demands payment, in dol- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I 33 

lars and cents, for their blood and bones, their 
muscles and sinews. His zeal and anxiety are in 
behalf of the slave holders, not of justice ; he de- 
mands pay, not punishment, and the question very 
naturally arises : Why did that officer attempt to 
stigmatize those people as guilty of mutiny and 
murder? .... These persons had 
suffered the hardest of slavery under the laws of 
Virginia ; while in that State, the whole power of 
the Commonwealth had been arrayed against them, 
to hold them in bondage. At length their owners 
carried them beyond the jurisdiction of these slave 
laws. They were upon the high seas subject only 
to the laws of Congress. These piratical dealers 
held them in subjection, without law, and in vio- 
lation of justice and the dictates of humanity. 
In the spirit and dignity of their manhood, they 
rose and asserted the rights with which the God 
of nature had endowed them. The slave holder 
thrust himself between them and their freedom, 
and attempted to disrobe them of the liberty which 
God had given them, and to subject them to his 
will. They defended their lives and their liberty ; 
they slew him, for which you and I and all man- 
kind honor them. We applaud their heroism ; 
the whole civilized world will say they did right. 
Not a slave holder present will say they did wrong. 
Would the honorable Secretary in their situation 
have done less ? Would he, with a craven heart 



134 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

and a dastardly soul, have quietly submitted to be 
carried to the barracoons of New Orleans, and 
sold like a beast of burthen ? If so, he would not 
have deserved the name of man. They possessed 
no moral right to surrender the liberty of them- 
selves and offspring for all coming time ; to doom 
their descendants forever to sighs, and chains, and 
tears, and suffering. .... Sir, the 
doctrines advanced by the Secretary of State are 
unworthy of the reputation he sustains and the po- 
sition he holds. They are in conflict with the spirit 
of the age in which we live, and of the religion we 
profess ; they are opposed to the Constitution, and 
to the humane promptings of our nature ; they 
are hostile to the public sentiment, and to the in- 
terest, of the people. The people love freedom ; 
they admire justice ; but they hate oppression, and 
detest crime." 

During the recess which followed the close of 
the session, extending from August until Decem- 
ber, 1842, Mr. Giddings was far from idle. He 
busied himself with the preparation of that series 
of political tracts written by him, and published 
over the signature '' Pacificus, " which at that time 
made so great a stir both among the supporters 
and opponents of slavery. It seems strange to-day 
to think that any considerable sensation could 
have been created by the promulgation of the 
opinions conveyed in these tracts, for they have 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I 35 

now earned such universal recognition as to seem 
almost axiomatic; then, however, they were suffi- 
ciently radical. Riddle has epitomized their princi- 
pal arguments, as follows : 

"The dominant ideas were those of the Creole 
resolutions. Slavery — a wrong — could only exist 
by virtue of positive law, and was wholly within 
the power and control of the State enacting the 
law. That the people of the free States were in 
no way responsible for slavery in the slave States, 
either to uphold or destroy. Freedom was their 
institution ; as they were not responsible for slavery 
in the States, so they must be held free from the 
cost and infamy of it. That the Federal Govern- 
ment could no more abolish one than the other 
within the States ; that everywhere outside the 
States, where their laws could not go, the author- 
ity of the Federal Government was supreme, and 
that it must be used to secure the ends and pro- 
mote the objects of its creation, as set forth in the 
Constitution." 

These papers were widely read and copied, 
evoked much discussion in private circles and in 
the public prints, drew forth vigorous set an- 
swers, and, when all was done, provided, in place 
of the vague sense of wrong and injustice which 
had been common to thousands in the North, a 
definite declaration of principles, — a creed which 
was almost universally accepted by those of that 



136 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

inclining. It must be remembered that the Aboli- 
tionists were a very small, and not a practical, 
element in the slavery contest at that time ; in 
other words, that the unquestioned constitutional 
obstacles, and the countless practical difficulties, in 
the way of abolition had, in 1842, caused the 
majority of the friends of the negro to be for the 
time content with repressive measures. They 
would have welcomed very gladly any substantial 
chance for abolition ; they looked for the day, as 
devout Jews look for a corporeal return to Jerusa- 
lem, when, by purchase or at the expiration of a 
certain long and fixed period, slavery might be 
forever at an end in the United States, but the 
fruition of that hope could only come in the dim 
future. As it was, the best of them were prepared 
to accept Mr. Giddings' statement of principles. 
The ultra Abolitionists were somewhat dissatisfied 
that it did not go further; the Northern Whigs, 
while individually assenting to its doctrines, were not 
yet prepared, as an organization, to commit them- 
selves to anything so radical. Hence the anti- 
slavery cause had not yet a party of strength and 
significance behind it — only the small but earnest 
band of men calling themselves the Liberty party, 
but these more united and determined than ever 
before. 

Giddings, at the time of his censure, was chair- 
man of the important Committee on Claims ; upon 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 37 

his resignation, the place was filled, according to 
custom, for the remainder of the session. Hence, 
upon the assembling of the third session of the 
XXVIIth Congress, White, of Kentucky, then 
Speaker, who had opposed and condemned the 
censure, promptly replaced Giddings at the head of 
his committee, against the protest of Southerners 
of both parties. The original rule of the House 
was that each committee should choose its own 
chairman, but the usage which now controls, that 
the person first named by the Speaker in appoint- 
ing the committee should be its chairman, was 
then well recognized and in force. A combina- 
tion was made by the members of the committee 
hostile to Mr. Giddings to compass his removal, 
by action of the committee. Giddings was 
warned and advised to resign, but declined so to 
do, and the plot against him failed. 

The session was notable for some of the strong- 
est work ever done by Mr. Giddings for the ob- 
struction and defeat of slavery legislation. The 
first occasion was upon the presentation of a bill, 
indemnifying masters for slaves lost in Florida. 
Giddings opposed the measure with all the re- 
sources which his great knowledge of the subject, 
his earnest persuasion of the iniquity of the meas- 
ure, and his ability as a debater, gave him. So 
close and exciting was the contest that it called to 
his feet the *'01d Man Eloquent," Adams, whose 



138 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

voice was then but rarely heard in the hall. His 
arguments and those of Mr. Giddings were suffi- 
cient to defeat the bill, of which the passage had 
been deemed a foregone conclusion. 

The second case was one in which Mr. Giddings 
was obliged to use one of the devices of the pro- 
fessional legislator — a very unusual thing for him. 
During the administration of Jackson, Great Brit- 
ain had been induced to pay ninety-five thousand 
dollars for the loss of slaves freed by being wrecked 
on British soil. This matter seems to have been a 
little private enterprise of Old Hickory and Van 
Buren, his friend and heir-at-law. The indemnity 
came directly into the hands of the former, and 
was by him largely distributed among the claim- 
ants whom he deemed entitled to it. The re- 
mainder passed to Van Buren, and the payments 
made during his administration reduced the bal- 
ance to the insignificant sum of four thousand 
dollars. This amount was transferred by Van 
Buren to the Secretary of the Treasury, and a re- 
ceipt was given by that officer. In 1843 ^ bill was 
introduced ordering the Secretary of the Treasury 
to pay from this fund the claims of certain persons, 
then tardily presented, which he had refused to 
recognize without the explicit direction of Con- 
gress. This bill Giddings resolved to oppose, 
not that he had any hope of defeating it, or 
any great desire to prevent the payment of so 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 139 

insignificant a sum, but because he wished to make 
a formal protest against the recognition by Con- 
gress, at so late a day, of an iniquitous transaction 
in which it had taken no early part. Giddings 
explained to Stanley, one of the promoters of the 
measure, what was his view of the case, and said 
that he would not oppose a bill to return the 
money to the Executive, thus restoring the matter 
to its original status. Stanley expressed himself 
satisfied. A bill in accordance with Giddings' sug- 
gestion was substituted and passed, but, when the 
matter reached the Senate, was amended by strik- 
ing out the bill as passed by the House, and sub- 
stituting the original and objectionable one. When 
the bill as amended was returned to the House, 
Stanley presented it, and demanded the previous 
question, to cut off debate. This was evidently a 
gross breach of faith, and justified extreme meas- 
ures on the part of Giddings. The latter voted 
for the bill, when it was put upon its passage, and 
immediately moved a reconsideration, explaining, 
at the same time, that his affirmative vot'e had 
been given purely for the purpose of securing an 
opportunity to be heard in opposition, of which 
an attempt had been made to defraud him. Then 
he followed with a splendidly simple but con- 
vincing argument in support of his position. It 
was a futile effort, but so brave a one as to com- 



140 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

mand admiration and to excuse the quotation of 
a portion : 

'*We are called on to interpose our legislative 
powers in aid of certain individuals of this city and 
of South Carolina who, in 183 1, entered into a 
commercial speculation in the bodies of men, 
women, and children. Many of them were born 
here under our laws, and were entitled by every 
principle of humanity to our protection. Here, 
sir, in view of this hall, under the shadow of the 
' star spangled banner ' which floats over this edi- 
fice, consecrated to freedom, to the maintenance 
of the undying truth that * governments are insti- 
tuted to secure all men in the enjoyment of life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' these huck- 
sters in human flesh critically examined the bodies 
and limbs, and judged of the age, the qualities, 
and the marketable value of fathers, mothers, 
sisters, brothers, and children. I doubt whether 
any slave market in Africa was ever attended by 
more expert dealers in human chattels, than was 
the market of this city, which profanes the name of 
Washington. But, sir, their victims were born 
and bred under our laws for the very purpose ; this 
city and the surrounding country have been familiar 
to them from their earliest recollection ; here 
were the scenes of their childhood, to which they 
had become attached ; here they had formed their 
associations ; in our churches they had listened to 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. I4I 

the preaching of the gospel, and there they had 
been admitted to church fellowship; there they 
had partaken of the holy communion as members 
of our various Christian denominations. Such were 
the people whose bodies were made merchandise 
under our laws. Such were the people purchased 
by these slave dealers, who now ask us to aid them 
in carrying out these speculations in the bodies of 
Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and Episco- 
palians. . . . But the bill goes farther, and 
directs the treasurer to pay to the owner of each 
slave 'such sum as he is entitled to receive.' 
By this form of expression, I suppose it was in- 
tended to give to each the value of the person 
claimed. How will you estimate the value of a 
man? Does it depend upon his complexion? for, 
sir, there are all grades of color in this market; 
or which is deemed the more valuable, black or 
white, or a mixture of both? Or, shall the officer 
be governed by the genealogy of the slave in esti- 
mating his value? ■ If he have descended in the 
paternal line from one of the best families in the 
"Old Dominion," shall he be deemed of greater 
value than though he were of pure African blood ? 
Does such mixture improve or deteriorate a man? 
These, sir, are all of them 'delicate questions,' 
which I should like to hear answered by some of 
the friends of the bill. . . . Sir, place the 
subject in whatever attitude you please, throw 



142 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

around it whatever sophistry the human intellect is 
capable of calling into exercise, yet the disgusting 
fact will stand portrayed to the world in coming 
time, that, in the year 1843, this American Con- 
gress sat gravely legislating in aid of this traffic in 
human flesh. Let it go upon record; let the 
archives of this body bear to coming generations, 
the proof that two hundred and forty-two Ameri- 
can statesmen were, on this day, engaged in grant- 
ing relief and encouragement to persons engaged 
in that execrable commerce, which Mr. Jefferson 
declared had 'rendered us the scoff of infidel 
nations. ' But let not my name be found among 
its advocates. Let not my descendants in future 
years be called to blush for their ancestor, in read- 
ing the record of this day's proceeding. Sooner, 
far sooner, would I have it erased from the records 
of this House ; yea, sooner would I have it blotted 
from existence than see it placed on record in 
favor of the bill before us." 

This long extract is given for the reason that it 
embodies, in comparatively small compass, several 
specimens of the style of Mr. Giddings as a de- 
bater. It would be interesting and profitable, 
were it possible, to multiply examples, but, with 
some very slight exceptions, those already given 
must suffice to place Mr. Giddings before the 
reader as he stood in the House, week after week, 
and year after year, while infants grew to be 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I43 

men, parties changed, and principles were rc-cast, 
ever clinging to his one resolve, and, through evil 
and good report alike, letting fall upon the seem- 
ingly solid rock of sin and prejudice, the drops of 
appeal, of logic, and of argument, which did so 
much to make the way for the great reform of 
the future. At the conclusion of the speech, 
Black, a half-civilized member from Georgia, at- 
tacked Mr. Giddings in one of the most indecent 
harangues ever heard upon the floor of the House; 
it contained no pretense at argument, — only scur- 
rility, profanity, and abuse. At the conclusion of 
the tirade Mr. Giddings said: '*I am not sent 
here by my constituents to notice the low, vulgar, 
and indecent attacks of which this out-pouring is 
a fair example," and turned away. Then Daw- 
son, a drunken bully from Louisiana, who had 
once before deliberately insulted the Ohio Con- 
gressman, came down the aisle, as Mr. Giddings, 
with his face turned away, was conversing with 
Mr. Wise, of Virginia, and pushed the former 
rudely, at the same time halting, with his hand 
on the hilt of his knife, to await an answer. Mr. 
Giddings, turning to Dawson, said: "Was that 
intended as an insult to me?" "It was," an- 
swered Dawson, at the same time muttering a 

threat to " Kill the d d Abolitionist." Then 

Mr. Giddings, addressing the chair, said: "He 
speaks of chastisement and personal violence. 



144 JOSHUA R. GIDDIXGS. 

Now, sir, I attack no man ; I am not a bully, but 
that I can and will defend myself, if occasion re- 
quires, shall be demonstrated when any of these 
threats shall be attempted to be carried into exe- 
cution. ". Mr. Giddings, a ver>^ powerful man, was 
capable, with a fair use of Nature's weapons, of 
demolishing half a dozen Dawsons and Blacks, 
and seeing him determined, friends of the gentle- 
men considerately interposed, and took them be- 
yond harm's reach. 

Before the close of the Twenty-seventh Con- 
gress^. the scheme for the annexation of Texas was 
already formed, and its entire import, the deep 
laid plan for the perpetuity of slavery, by a south- 
ern extension of the United States, looking as far 
as Mexico and Cuba, fully recognized. At the 
very close of the Twenty-seventh Congress, under 
date of March 3, 1843, was promulgated the 
famous address of the twenty members of Con- 
gress, to * ' The People of the Free States of the 
Union," exposing the annexation scheme in its 
true light, and calling for the support of the peo- 
ple in an effort to defeat it. Of the twenty 
naiTies signed to this address, the first were those 
of John Q. Adams, Seth M. Gates, William Slade, 
William B. Calhoun, and Joshua R. Giddings. 
The paper was drawn by Mr. Gates, and was cir- 
culated everywhere throughout the North, prac- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, I45 

tically opening- the bitter contest on the subject 
which marked the next Congress, 

The Twenty-eighth Congress, which met at 
Washington, in December, 1843, found Giddings 
with greater responsibihties and better fitness to 
sustain them than ever before. Adams, it is true, 
was yet in his place, but the labor of years had 
made him an infirm old man, still well fitted to 
give counsel, but little able to lead in a prolonged 
and violent parliamentary struggle ; Slade and 
Gates, his old-time allies, had retired, and he was 
the only speaking member left to represent the 
anti-slavery cause. The contest, if somewhat more 
decorous than that of his earlier service, was more 
intense and bitter. At the outset of the session 
Mr. Adams reopened his old battle against the de- 
nial of the right of petition, embodied and en- 
forced in the rule of the House, commonly known 
as the Atherton gag rule. For two weeks this gal- 
lant veteran, of seventy-six years, held his place 
in an exceptionally bitter and intense debate, with 
all his old quickness and effectiveness ; his mind 
lacked nothing of power to carry the contest to the 
end against this old wrong, which he so anxiously 
desired to see righted before he died, but, at the 
end of those two weeks, bodily fatigue and weak- 
ness compelled him to give over to Mr. Giddings 
his own place in the battle. The latter carried the 
contest to a successful issue, following Mr. Adams* 



146- JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

points SO closely that even a hostile majority feared 
to insist upon retaining upon the books so iniqui- 
tous a rule. The speech made by Mr. Giddings 
on the 14th of February, 1844, which practically 
closed the debate on his side, was, as many think, 
the finest constitutional argument ever made by 
him. 

So long as Giddings had been comparatively in- 
significant, his unpopularity in Washington society, 
and in the House in particular, had only extended 
to those persons actually threatened or affected by 
his efforts ; he was but one of a large body, and 
bore only his share of odium. By 1844 he had 
risen to a place of unquestionable leadership — not 
of a party, but of a sentiment. He was the em- 
bodiment of hope to the anti-slavery people of the 
North ; the incarnation of all that was contemp- 
tible to the slave holding element, and to the 
Northern doughfaces. The Whig party was not 
gifted with prevision, and did not recognize how 
inevitable was a contest which should rest fairly 
upon the slavery issue. Its leaders, whatever their 
private feelings and belief on the subject of slavery, 
dreaded an agitation which might injure them in 
the Presidential campaign, then approaching. They 
confounded the instrument with the power which 
wielded it, and, not recognizing that Giddings was 
but a medium for the manifestation of the un- 
changeable laws of justice, — that eternal truth was 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I47 

forcing itself to a hearing from his Hps, — they con- 
demned and avoided him as a marplot and a dema- 
gogue. In such an anomalous position was he 
placed ; admittedly the most prominent figure in 
the House of Representatives, he was still denied 
his old place, at the head of the Committee on 
Claims, and only recognized by an appointment 
far down in the membership of the Committee on 
Revolutionary Pensions ; a kindly, social, and 
sympathetic man, he was ignored in society, save 
that of the little knot of those who thought as he 
did. With power and influence to oppose, and 
sometimes overrule, a legislative majority, the 
doors of Washington homes were closed against 
him, public prints maligned him, and men whom 
he had known for years, passed him in the lobbies, 
and on the street, without recognition. All this, 
so far from weakening his allegiance to his own 
conscience, seemed to nerve him for the greater 
struggles that were before him. Indeed, those 
were dark and threatening days for the Republic, 
and there was need of men of such heroic mold 
as his. The dark plots which resulted in the theft 
of Texas, and the iniquitous war with Mexico, 
were even then laid ; before, though yet unsus- 
pected, were the abrogation of the Missouri Com- 
promise, the Lecompton outrage, presenting the 
spectacle of a Government waging war against its 
own people, to force slavery upon them against 



148 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

their will ; then the California and Oregon troubles, 
and, finally, secession and war. 

The first of these succeeding and cumulative dan- 
gers was at hand, Texas was already slave terri- 
tory, but English philanthropists had long been en- 
deavoring to secure the abolition of slavery within 
its limits. In 1843 these efforts had taken more 
definite form than ever before. The South became 
alarmed, and President Tyler began a correspon- 
dence with the Texan authorities, looking to the an- 
nexation of the vast territory under their control. 
The arguments soberly advanced in favor of such 
a measure, were that the existence of a free and 
independent territory, contiguous to our Southern 
borders, would endanger the existence of slavery 
in the United States, while the possession of 
Texas would give an Outlet for the surplus slave 
population. The second reason explains the whole 
matter: the South had determined to secure Texas, 
and as much additional territory to the southward 
as possible; colonize it, establish slavery upon a 
firm basis, eventually obtain the admission of 
slave States to be carved out of the new territory, 
and, thus offsetting the westward development 
upon free soil, perpetuate the political control of 
the Nation by the South. This was the plan. 
Southern men had long been urging, in Congress 
and through the press, the desirability of such an 
acquisition; an annexation propaganda had been 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I49 

quietly at work upon the interest of the South, 
and the cupidity and creduHty of the North. The 
address of the twenty Congressmen was the first 
warning on the subject. The second came on the 
2 1 st of May, 1844, when, the naval appropriation 
bill being under discussion in committee of the 
whole, and a treaty of annexation being already 
framed and agreed upon, before the Senate, Mr. 
Giddings took advantage of the latitude of debate 
allowed under the circumstances, and embodied 
in a speech, the first protest ever made in Congress 
against this contemplated wrong, which the whole 
civilized world has since recognized and united in 
condemning. To do this duty required an amount 
of courage, — personal and moral, — difficult for us, 
in these more settled days of the Republic, to appre- 
ciate. It was done, and well done. Mr. Giddings 
was uncompromising. He showed how Texas was 
in revolt against Mexico, a friendly power, by rea- 
son of Mexico's effort to abolish Texan slavery; 
he looked for a motive for the desire of Texas for 
annexation, and found it to exist in the dual fact 
that she had a war with Mexico, which she desired 
us to fight, and a debt of ten millions of dollars, 
which she wished us to pay. He pointed out the 
facts that the United States was called upon to as- 
sume this war, and pay this sum for the avowed pro- 
tection of an institution which could not be consti- 
tutionally recognized, an institution hateful to the 



I^O JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

North; that the North would be compelled to pay its 
share of the cost,not only without benefit, but to its 
positive disadvantage; and tested the justice of the 
measure, by reversing the proposition, and asking 
how the South would view a project, emanating 
from the North, which contemplated annexing 
Texas at a large cost, that her slaves might be set 
free, and slavery weakened in the South. He 
said, further, " We have passed more than half a 
century under our present Constitution, and now 
the President assumes to himself the power of 
making slavery a National instead of a State insti- 
tution, and of extending the power and influence 
of the Federal Government to its support. He 
has brought our army into the field, in hostile atti- 
tude toward a friendly power, with whom we are 
on terms of perfect amity, and has sent a fleet to 
insult and provoke that government to hostilities. 
He has, by his secret orders, without the consent 
of the people of the Nation or their representa- 
tives, and without deigning even to consult his 
constitutional advisers, suddenly plunged us into 
a war for the openly avowed object and purpose 
of extending and perpetuating slavery. These 
profligate acts, these usurpations of power, these 
violations of the Constitution, can be characterized 
by no term of milder signification than tirason, 
treason against the rights of this people, treason 
against the Constitution, treason against humanity 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 151 

itself. I feel it my duty to declare it such in the 
presence of this House and of the country. 

. . . . The gentleman from Alabama said, 
rather sneeringly, I thought, that there is a class of 
public men who deny the constitutional power of 
the Federal Government to annex Texas to this 
Union. He then went on to say that such were 
the views of the Abolitionists, and that their candi- 
date for President (James G. Birney) had started 
this doctrine. Now I beg leave to differ with the 
gentleman, as to the authorship of this doctrine. It 
had been put forth long before Mr. Birney's letter 
was written. It was put forth by a greater aboli- 
tionist than Mr. Birney — by a man whom I have 
always regarded as a far greater man, and for whose 
opinions I have, from my youth up, been taught 
to pay the highest respect. (Cries: 'Who is it? 
Who is it?') He was the author of the first aboli- 
tion tract ever published in the United States, and, 
in my opinion, the best ever put forth. (Cries, 
' Name him !') I borrowed my own abolition senti- 
ments from his writings; I have cherished them, 
and shall continue to do so, from respect to his 
memory, if from no other motive. His name was 
Thomas Jefferson, and his abolition tract was 
called the Declaration of Independence." 

This speech being made in committee of the 
whole, and not to any question, was merely an ex- 
pression. It was purely impromptu ; Mr. Gid- 



152 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

dings when the sitting began, had no idea of speak- 
ing and he used neither note nor reference. As 
an example of ex tempore oratory it bears, as a 
whole, favorable comparison with any ever de- 
livered in the House. There may have been more 
brilliant and eloquent speeches, — few clearer, more 
forcible or better calculated to impress any person 
open to conviction. 

Of the Texas project and Mr. Giddings' con- 
nection with it, more hereafter. The Presidential 
campaign was at hand. Mr. Giddings was again 
placed in an embarrassing position, for, while his 
sympathy was all with the Liberty party, he had 
no faith in their ability, at the stage of affairs then 
existing, to accomplish results ; his supreme desire 
was to bring something practical to pass, and he 
believed that that result could only be accom- 
plished through the agency of one or the other of 
the existing parties, until something should happen 
to cause a re-array of forces. The Democrats were 
irretrievably committed to the cause of slavery ; 
the Whigs had never been organically identified 
Avith the anti-slavery cause, but their attitude had 
been dictated more by policy than by sentiment. 
A large proportion of the Northern men included 
within the Whig lines were, theoretically at least, 
opposed to slavery. Mr. Giddings did not despair 
of the conversion of the Whig party, especially 
if the Texas scheme should result in the forma- 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. I 53 

tion of a distinct issue. Hence, in the campaign 
of 1844, he opposed Polk because he hated the 
Democratic party ; he opposed Birney because he 
saw no prospect of electing him ; he favored and 
supported Clay, because, in a Whig success, he 
thought existed the best practical chance for the 
cause to which he was devoted. Never did he 
come so near sacrificing the faith and affection of 
his constituents. The anti-slavery spirit was 
stronger in the Western Reserve, than in any other 
territory, of equal extent, in the United States. 
The young Whigs had gone, almost to a man, in- 
to the Liberty party. Their blood was hotter and 
their reason not so clear as that of Giddings. They 
blamed him for supporting Clay, as did the Birney 
organs the country over, and he was bitterly 
abused by those who had always been his warmest 
friends and admirers. He had not, however, 
faced that early "Solid South" for years, to be 
much affected by abuse or misrepresentation. 
Election came. Every school boy now knows the 
result. Polk was elected, Clay defeated, and 
Birney buried. Clay beat himself by indiscreet 
utterances, and his friends were loud in mourning 
that it was so ; but, in looking back at the cam- 
paign from the standpoint of to-day, it seems as 
though Polk's election was indeed the most for- 
tunate possible result. We now see that there 
was even then an irrepressible conflict between 



154 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

North and South; that war was foreordained; 
that the poison of slavery was in the Nation's 
blood, and something must come to bring it 
out or the country was doomed. Polk took his 
seat ; Texas was annexed, the Mexican war came ; 
the Whigs were routed, the Republican party was 
formed; slavery took the sword and slavery per- 
ished by the sword. So close was the sequence of 
events. It all must have come in the end, but 
Polk, perhaps, hastened that end by more than 
one decade. 

One feature of Mr. Giddings' attitude in this 
campaign, was peculiarly characteristic of the man. 
His support of Mr. Clay he required to be based 
upon knowledge, — the knowledge that Clay was 
clearly committed to opposition to the Texas an- 
nexation scheme, and as clearly an advocate of the 
theory that slavery was purely a State institution. 
Clay wrote an open letter on the annexation ques- 
tion, which was quite satisfactory to Giddings and 
the Ohio Whigs, but he was unwise enough to 
follow it with another, which seemed on the surface 
to radically modify the matter. Giddings wrote him 
in regard to the subject, and a long and confiden- 
tial correspondence ensued, which is of great his- 
torical interest. One of Clay's letters may well 
be reproduced in this place, for the reason that it 
ckarly defines his position and foreshadows his de- 
feat. It is as follows: 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 155 

" Confidential. 
Ashland, iithSept., 1844. 
"Your friendly letter of the fourth instant, which 
I have just received, affords me a good opportu- 
nity of writing to you, which I much desired. I 
am extremely sorry that my letters to Alabama 
should have produced any unfavorable impressions 
in your portion of Ohio. It was not my intention, 
in those letters, to vary the ground in the smallest 
degree which I assumed in the Raleigh letter. It 
had been represented to me that in that letter I 
had displayed a determined opposition to the an- 
nexation of Texas to the United States, although 
the whole Union might be in favor of it, and it 
could be peacefully and honorably effected, upon 
favorable terms. It was my purpose in those 
Alabama letters to say that no personal or private 
motives prompted me to oppose annexation, but 
that my opinion in opposition to it was founded- 
wholly upon public and general considerations. I 
therefore said that if, by common consent of the 
Union, without National dishonor, without war, 
and upon just conditions, the object of annexation 
could be accomplished, I did not wish to be con- 
sidered as standing in opposition to the wishes of 
the whole Confederacy, but upon the supposition 
stated would be glad to see those wishes gratified. 
Could I say less? Can it be expected that I 
should put myself in opposition to the concurrent 



156 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

will of the whole Nation, if such should be its 
will? . . . My position is very sin- 

gular. Whilst at the South I am represented as a 
liberty man, at the North I am decried as an ultra 
supporter of slavery, when, in fact, I am neither 
one nor the other. This peculiarity of position 
exposes me to a cross-fire from opposite directions, 
and rendered it indispensably necessary that I 
should come out, a few days ago, with a note in 
relation to the letter of Cassius M. Clay, Esq., 
just published in the Tribune. 

You, I trust, will be satisfied with the position 
taken in my note, that the existence, maintenance, 
and continuance of the institution of slavery, 
depend exclusively upon State power and author- 
ity. As you had expressed regret that my Raleigh 
speech should have omitted that principle, I 
thought the occasion a suitable one for reassert- 
ing it. 

"I am, with great respect, 

Your friend and ob'd't serv't, 

H. Clay." 
Hon. J. A. Giddings. 
Scarcely had Congress reconvened, when the 
Texas question came up again. Benton had op- 
posed and defeated Calhoun's original treaty of 
annexation, the discussion of which in the Senate 
was coincident with the speech of Giddings already 
referred to. Benton desired the annexation, but 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 157 

was frightened at the high-handed and unconstitu- 
tional action of the President to that end. He 
opposed not the end but the means, and at the 
first opportunity offered a joint resolution provid- 
ing for the annexation. Resolution after resolu- 
tion, amendment after amendment, was offered. 
The contest was really as to the payment of the 
Texan debt, and as to the immediate admission of 
the new territory as a State, by a provision of its 
annexation. Mr. Giddings, while taking part from 
day to day in the almost constant debates, made 
no set speech on the subject during the session, 
until the 22d of January, 1843, when certain let- 
ters of Calhoun, Secretary of State, to our Minis- 
ters at Versailles and St. James, arguing that 
slavery was a humane and beneficent institution, 
came before the House in connection with the 
Texan question. Mr. Giddings never suffered 
such a challenge to his conscience to pass, and 
obtaining the fioor, he delivered a masterly speech, 
in which he considered the economical, moral, and 
constitutional bearings of the question. He showed, 
with a clearness that had perhaps never been 
equalled, the inconsistency of the South, which in 
one breath declared slavery to be an institution 
purely under the control of the several States in 
which it existed, and in the next demanded that 
the Federal Government annex the territory of an 
independent power, assume a vast debt, and face 



158 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

the certainty of war — all for the protection of this 
same institution, which it could not control or 
abolish. By the simple recital of incidents, and 
use of vital statistics, he excoriated Mr. Calhoun 
and exposed his falsehood and hypocrisy to the 
contempt of the world. 

In spite, however, of all efforts to the contrary, 
Texas was, by joint resolution, passed February 
28, 1845, annexed and admitted to the Union as a 
State, with an immediate representation of two 
members, pending an apportionment. So was 
completed the preliminary step of a great and 
costly wrong. A short extra session was held ; 
Polk was inaugurated, and Congress adjourned 
sine die. 

At the threshold of the Twenty-ninth Congress 
stood the champions of the slave power, resolved 
to find a new way by which to silence petitions, 
which the defeat of the infamous Atherton gag 
threatened to shower upon them. Their first step 
was to secure a speaker without conscience or iden- 
tity apart from their own. Him they found in 
John W. Davis, of Indiana. Davis so made up his 
committees as to insure the death of any petition 
relating to slavery, which might be referred to 
them. During that session, at least, the anti- 
slavery men found themselves but little better off 
for their ostensible victory. 

The overweenincr interest of the session was the 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 59 

Oregon question, suggested by the astute Polk in 
his message, and soon crystallized. First, how- 
ever, the annexation of Texas, agreed to by the 
last Congress, was consummated. Then a resolu- 
tion was passed, directing that the Secretary of 
State give notice to England that the joint occupa- 
tion of Oregon by Great Britain and the United 
States, should be forthwith terminated, and that the 
United States claimed right and title to the whole. 
The Territory then embraced all the country west 
of the Rocky mountains, north of the forty-second 
parallel, and extending, according to the programme 
adopted, to 54^" 40" north latitude — far into the 
present British possessions. This demand, if 
adhered to, meant war with England ; and the 
South, not satisfied with its Mexican imbroglio, 
was mad for war. Giddings and Adams, while 
never favoring such a demand, or desiring war, 
saw the advantage of their position over that of 
the South. On the 5th of January, 1846, Mr. 
Giddings addressed the House, favoring the 
absorption of Oregon as proposed, in a speech 
which cut the South to the quick. He turned back 
at them the batteries which they had used against 
him in the Texan debate. He showed how a war 
with England, if successful, could only end in the 
acquisition of the whole of Canada by the United 
States ; how that territory would be naturally a 
non-slave holding one ; how, in the event of a 



l60 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

continued union of the States, free States would be 
erected, and anti-slavery Representatives and Sena- 
tors returned to Congress therefrom. In the event 
of a division between the North and South, the 
acquisition would, he admitted, be of infinite 
value to the former. He also showed that such a 
war could but be one of emancipation ; that Eng- 
land would attack us from the West Indies, with 
regiments of blacks; proclaim freedom for all 
slaves joining her force, that a servile insurrection 
must follow, and, whatever the issue of the war, 
slavery would be upset. Hence he favored the 
measure. 

Adams followed in the same tone, but, had he 
not done so, Giddings' speech would have killed 
the bill. Great Britain proposed a compromise, 
offering the forty-fifth parallel as a boundary line. 
The Senate, in an ague, advised Polk to accept the 
offer, which he at once did, thus closing one of the 
most brilliant exhibitions of legislative, executive, 
and diplomatic finesse that has ever distinguished 
our country. Whoever originated the plan carried 
out by Giddings and Adams, it was beautifully 
executed. Some credit for simultaneous discovery, 
at least, is evidently due the Hon. Thurlow Weed, 
then as always a long-sighted and clear-headed m.an. 
Witness the following letter : 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. l6l 

**AsTOR House, New York, \ 
December 24, 1845. / 
''Dear Sir: If the President in his message 
plays the game of war, why not out-trump him? 
Wars are sometimes National blessings, though 
generally the reverse. But are there not worse 
things than war? The Mexican war, though cause- 
less and ugly, yet contained jewels. If war with 
England would give us a tariff, Canada, and free- 
dom, shall we refuse it ? 

''But it has another aspect — the duplicity of 
the administration. Were you to take this ground, 
in one of your strong, vigorous fifteen-minute 
speeches, it would blow the war and the adminis- 
tration sky-high. 

"Very truly yours, 

"Thurlow Weed. 
"Hon. J. Giddings." 
So much for Oregon. 



l62 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 



VIL 

The causes which led to the Florida wars were 
not, so late as 1846, entirely removed. Particu- 
larly was this true with the Seminole tribe of In- 
dians. Large numbers of escaped negro slaves 
had fled to Florida during the earlier years of the 
century, had been adopted by the Seminoles as 
members of their tribe, and had intermarried with 
them. These people and their descendants were 
still with the tribe, when the Government at last 
compelled the Seminoles to follow the Creeks and 
Cherokees across the Mississippi river. The res- 
ervation selected for them was within the jurisdic- 
tion and territory of the Creeks, who were crea- 
tures of the slave-holders, and, fearing that the 
Creeks would seize the African and half-breed 
members of their tribe, many of the Seminoles 
refused to proceed, and settled upon the lands of 
the Cherokees. This made trouble between the 
Cherokees and Seminoles, and a treaty was se- 
cretly made with the latter, whereby they were to 
proceed to the reservation intended for them, and 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I63 

all disputes between the tribes, as to any pToperty 
owned or claimed by eithei-, were to be submitted 
to the arbitrament of the President of the United 
States. Of this secret treaty Giddings managed 
to obtain a copy, and when, in February, 1846, 
the sum of forty thousand dollars was included in 
the Indian appropriation bill, for the purpose of 
carrying out its provisions, he astonished the 
Southern supporters of the bill by opposing it, 
and assailing them from the text of a treaty which 
they supposed to be hidden in the archives of the 
department. The chairman of the Committee on 
Ways and Means made a lame reply, but could 
not deny a single allegation, and was obliged to 
leave the President of the United States before 
his people and the world in the light of an umpire 
between barbarian slave stealers and the no less 
barbarous defenders of a right which he did not 
recognize. In the meantime, the prophecies of 
the opponents of slavery regarding the Mexican 
matter were being more than fulfilled. War had 
come, and every student of history knows the 
story of its prosecution. Our part in the war was 
principally apparent in its effects upon the treas- 
ury, and in disasters to armies sent into an alien 
country, to fight the battles of a foreign state, for 
the benefit of a section of our own people. Gid- 
dings, who had opposed the war in its inception, 
and had been one of the first to expose the dan- 



l64 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

gers involved in the measure from which it sprung-, 
was as constant and consistent in opposing its 
prosecution. It was never aught but a war of ag- 
grandizement, worthy of Nero or Alexander in its 
conception, but executed as if by a parcel of 
school-boys. The war was commenced by the 
President, who sent Taylor and his troops into 
Texas with orders to proceed to the Rio Grande, 
and, if deemed wise, to cross that stream and 
press into the territory of Mexico. It was months 
before Polk made any communication to Congress 
on the subject. When he did so, Taylor and his 
army were in Mexico, ostensibly to guard against 
Indian outbreaks on the border, really to wage a 
war of conquest. The Mexican troops opposed 
this outrage. Then Polk sent a communication to 
Congress, announcing that war existed by the act 
of Mexico. A resolution to that effect Avas intro- 
duced into the House and forced through without 
debate, under a movement of the previous ques- 
tion — the House of Representatives of the United 
States actually allowing itself to be compelled to 
declare war against a neighboring power without 
a word of discussion. The bill came up, however, 
in committee of the whole, on the I2th day o{ 
May, 1846, when Mr. Giddings threw himself into 
the debate, and made the first of a series of 
speeches which did very much to disgust the peo- 
ple of the United States with the war, and to 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 65 

place clearly before them, and before the world, the 
true responsibility for its inauguration. Some 
small quotations from this speech may not be 
amiss : 

"I apprehend that Mexico has maturely consid- 
ered the subject, and enters upon the war with a 
solemn conviction that her existence as a nation 
depends upon her resistance to our aggressiveness. 
The correspondence before us proves the fact ; 
conclusively proves it. Why, sir, look at General 
Taylor's report, and you will see a devotion mani- 
fested by the officers and peasantry of Mexico, 
that speaks in thunder tones to those who regard 
the conquest of that people as a trifling matter. 
See the females and children at the approach of our 
troops leave their homes, consecrated by all the 
ties of domestic life, and, while they are fleeing to 
the Mexican army for protection, see the husbands 
and fathers apply the torch to their own dwellings, 
and then fly to arms in the defense of their insti- 
tutions. I confess I was struck with deep solem- 
nity when that communication was read at your 
table ; and, in imitation of William Pitt, I was 
ready to swear that, if I were a Mexican, as I am 
an American, I would never sheathe my sword 
while an enemy remained upon my native soil." 

Such was the bold stand taken by Mr. Giddings, 
upon the proposal to declare the war begun by 
Mexico. But the bill making such declaration 



1 66 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

passed. The war dragged its slow length along. 
Near the close of the session the Government 
asked that three million dollars be placed at the 
disposal of the President to enable him to force 
the war to a speedy and honorable termination. 
Mr. Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, on the 8th. of Au- 
gust, 1846, moved an amendment to the bill 
making the appropriation, that slavery be forever 
prohibited in any territory which might be acquired 
from Mexico as a result of the war. The matter 
came up at the next session and, in February, 
1847, Mr. Giddings advocated the amendment in a 
speech, in the course of which he said: 

" Gentlemen from the South, with deep emo- 
tions, have solemnly warned us, that, if we per- 
sist in our determination, the Union will be dis- 
solved. I do not doubt their sincerity. But I 
would rather see this Union rent into a thousand 
fragments, than have my country disgraced, and 
its moral purity sacrificed, by the prosecution of a 
war for the extension of human bondage. Nor 
would I avoid the issue were it in my power. For 
many years I have seen the rights of the North, 
and the vital principles of our Constitution, sur- 
rendered to the haughty vaporings of Southern 
members. For many years I have exerted my 
humble influence to stimulate Northern members 
to the maintenance of our honor and of the Con- 
stitution. And now I devoutly thank that God 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 16/ 

who has permitted me to witness the union of a 
portion of Northern members, of both poHtical 
parties, upon a question so vital to our interests 
and honor, as well as to humanity." 

The amendment was adopted by the House but 
rejected by the Senate, and the three million dol- 
lars followed other millions that had gone before, 
without condition ; yet the Wilmot proviso was 
fruitful in its death, for it furnished at last the 
common basis upon which, from the discontented 
elements of the Whigs and Democrats, meeting 
with the small and ineffective Liberty party, was to 
be evolved the Free Soil party, which, while it 
never elected a President, still came, as the sound 
of a voice crying in the wilderness, to prepare the 
way for the Republican party and the final over- 
throw of slavery. 

There was one and but one other notable oppor- 
tunity for Giddings during that session. In March 
the perennial Ainist ad C2iSQ came to the House in 
a new form. An appropriation bill came back 
from the Senate, saddled with an amendment pro- 
viding for the payment of fifty thousand dollars to 
the owners of the negroes liberated from that ves- 
sel. Giddings made an attack upon the amend- 
ment and concluded, when lo ! in his place, arose 
the tottering veteran, John Quincy Adams, 
aroused like an old warrior at the bugle call, and 
with his still peerless eloquence attacked the 



l68 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

outrage sought to be committed. Every ear in 
the galleries was strained, every member ceased 
his occupation and listened, many gathered about 
the place of the orator, and not a sound was heard 
save the quavering voice of the speaker. There 
seemed in this attention, so impartially paid, some- 
thing almost like prevision, for in truth the voice 
of the "Old Man Eloquent" was there raised for 
the last time, and raised in the cause which, for 
more than sixteen years, he had constantly and 
consistently advocated. 

The amendment was lost by an overwhelming 
majority. The second session of the Twenty- 
ninth Congress may be thus dismissed, and few 
have there been in the history of that body which 
it is a greater pleasure to pass by. 

Already the probabilities for the Presidential cam- 
paign of 1848 were outlined. Polk was too 
hopelessly imbecile to be named for re-election. 
Taylor, in Mexico, was posing for the nomina- 
tion. Giddings and his friends saw that his elec- 
tion would give an administration which would be 
like the last, with all the bad points emphasized. 
Giddings had opportunity and excuse enough to 
oppose Taylor in the House. This he did, con- 
sistently and openly. Anything like reservation 
or pretense was foreign to him in politics as in 
his private life. After the adjournment he wrote 
a strono- letter to the same effect to the New York 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. 169 

Tribune. Greeley published the communication, 
but sent a personal letter to Mr. Giddings, of 
which the following is a copy: 

''Hon. J. R. Giddings: 

" Dear Sir : I think you seriously err in making 
a fight against Taylor in the spirit of your letter, 
which I have printed this morning. Nothing can 
be more fragile than such a popularity as his, un- 
less it may be his life. A hasty plate of soup 
may upset him in a twinkling. Now your mode 
of opposing him will exasperate those who have 
taken him up, from thoughtlessness, or a belief in 
his popularity, and they will oppose our man at 
all events, and probably adhere to Taylor. It is 
surely not wise. I want a Whig Congress now, 
and am willing to take North Carolina, Tennessee, 
and Kentucky Whigs to make it up. Are not 
you ? Then I want a Whig President. Corwin is 
my first choice — but I prefer almost any Whig to 
a loco-foco. Let us commend our own man, or 
set forth the qualities we require, rather than assail 
another. Yours, 

Horace Greeley." 

Henry Wilson, however, writing under date of 
April loth, of the same year, and speaking of the 
Taylor movement, says : ' ' Can we not defeat 
this movement? We must, if possible. I would 



I/O JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

not submit to it, come what may. , . . Let 
the party be divided, rather than submit to have 
any man who is a slaveholder, or in favor of slave 
territory, elected. Can we not, if Taylor is forced 
upon us, call a convention of the Whigs of the 
free States, and put up two good and true men — 
make a full declaration of principles — and appeal 
to the country, and nominate electors, and con- 
test every district in the free States?" 

This was Giddings' view as well. He saw that 
the time had come to accept defeat upon a good 
platform, rather than victory at the expense of a 
compromise with Satan. He probably had little 
or no hope of immediate success, but he had faith 
to believe that there were enough voters of his 
own view on the subject of slavery and the Wil- 
mot proviso, to form the nucleus of a new party, 
which would ultimately win success. 

The Thirtieth Congress commenced in Decem- 
ber, 1847. Giddings and some of his friends de- 
termined to make at least a protest against the elec- 
tion of a speaker who would galvanize the Atherton 
gag, and give it a post viorteni efficiency. Hence, 
when Winthrop, a hopeless doughface, was nom- 
inated for speaker, Giddings procured Palfrey to 
write the candidate a letter, asking him if he would, 
in the event of his election, so arrange the com- 
mittees as to procure a respectful hearing for pe- 
titions from the free States. To this no answer 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I/I 

came, and Giddings, with several of his associates, 
gave him no votes. For this, Giddings was as- 
sailed by the Whig press in a most violent man- 
ner. The Cleveland Herald was peculiarly bitter 
and unreasoning in its denunciations, and Mr. 
Giddings made an answer which justified his action 
so clearly and unquestionably as to fairly force 
Mr. Winthrop into print in his own defense. 
Winthrop was elected, and when the House com- 
mittees were named, they were such as to settle 
any doubts which might have existed as to the 
truth of Mr. Giddings' statements ; they were, from 
first to last, brought into being with the evident 
mission of serving the South, and denying right 
and justice to the friend of the negro. So, again, 
silence was insured in Congress, so far as petitions 
and protests against slavery were concerned. 

Not much was done in Congress during the 
earlier weeks of the session. The House and 
Senate thanked Taylor, by joint resolution, for his 
services at Buena Vista, and tendered the same 
compliment to Scott, for his gallantry at Vera 
Cruz. Giddings alone, of all in the House, voted 
against this testimonial to Taylor. Taylor men 
had been astute and politic, and were satisfied. 

On the 2 1 St of February the House convened 
as usual. Some not very important business was 
under consideration, when there was a sudden flut- 
ter in one portion of the room, a prostrate man 



1/2 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

was tenderly raised and carried to the speaker's 
room, the House adjourned, and soon the Senate. 
John Quincy Adams had been stricken with paraly- 
sis, and lay senseless, and all but dead. For two 
days thp anxiety continued ; House and Senate 
daily met, and immediately adjourned — then the 
great man died, and all met to do him honor. 
Even beside his cold body, party feeling was not 
forgotten, for Giddings, the friend and disciple of 
the dead chief, was ignored, — was not named to 
share the burden of the bier. He followed him to 
Quincy, among the throng, stricken with a grief 
deep and sincere as any which paid the tribute of 
tears beside the grave. 

In April, 1848, between seventy and eighty 
slaves attempted to make their escape from the 
District of Columbia, on board the schooner Pearl. 
The negroes, as well as the captain and mate of 
the vessel, were captured, returned to Washington, 
and imprisoned in the jail. On the foUow^ing morn- 
ing, Mr. Giddings, as always fearless of danger, 
visited the prisoners in the jail. An infuriated 
mob at once collected, forced the outer gate of the 
jail, and ascended to the one which opened into the 
hall, where the Congressman was conversing with 
Dayton, captain of the Pearl. There they halted, 
and demanded that Giddings leave the jail at once, 
on peril of his life. This he refused to do, con- 
tinued and concluded his conversation, and, wheji 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 173 

entirely prepared, passed through the door and 
stood, quite undefended, in the face of the armed 
and angry mob. For one moment they stood op- 
posing his passage, then, as if unable to resist his 
spleiidid dignity and bravery, parted to right and 
left, and suffered him to pass, like the Apostle of 
old, from the prison gates. Mr. Palfrey offered, in 
the House, a resolution inquiring into the facts, 
and a debate followed, which, for bitterness and 
vileness of abuse, rivals any that disgraces the 
journal of that body. Of all this, Mr. Giddings 
was personally the target, and for two days he sat 
in silence under it. On the third, he spoke — not 
in his own defense, for he had nothing to defend — 
but in bitter arraignment of his assailants, and in 
bold defiance of their power to injure him or his 
cause. Many of Mr. Giddings' utterances, upon 
the floor of Congress, have been quoted in these 
pages, but, as no words of the author can so well 
contribute to a clear understanding of the man and 
his motives, some portion of this speech may well 
be given here. He said, in the course of his 
speech: **Mr. Speaker, I will inform that gentle- 
man, with all sincerity, that it is too late in the day 
to attempt to seal the lips of Northern Representa- 
tives, in regard to the slave trade, or on any other 
subject which comes before this body. I give 
notice to that gentleman, and to all others, that I 
shall speak just what I think, on any, or every sub- 



174 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

ject which comes before us. It is my intention to 
call things by their right names, to speak, so far 
as I am able, in such direct, plain, and simple lan- 
guage as to be understood. It is true that free- 
dom of speech has been put down in this hall ; it 
was for years trampled under foot by the slave 
power. I sat here during several sessions of Con- 
gress, in degrading silence, and often listened to 
the supercilious tirades of the slavery members 
against myself, and against the advocates of liberty, 
while I was not permitted to reply. The slave 
power then reigned triumphant in this body. Sir, 
it is well known, that for asserting in this House 
some of the plainest principles of constitutional 
law, I was censured and driven from my seat here. 
But, thank God, after years of toil and effort, we 
have regained the freedom of debate. And now, 
I say to the slaveholders present, we shall never 
again surrender it. . . . . Why, does 

the gentleman from Tennessee expect that I shall 
ask him, or any other member, when I shall speak, 
what I shall say, and how I shall say it? Do 
Southern gentlemen suppose that they can bring 
into this body the practices which they pursue on 
their plantations ? Sir, they forget the theater in 
which they are acting. They forget that they are 
among freemen ; they surely think themselves 
among slaves, accustomed to crouch and tremble 
at their frowns. This hall is not the place for the 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1/5 

display of supercilious dictation. 
When this proposition, to restrain the freedom of 
debate, is published in my district, the school boys 
will laugh at it. But the gentleman thinks that 
my language in this hall has excited a love of lib- 
erty among the slaves. As to that, I have made 
no inquiry. If it has imparted to them informa- 
tion, or inspired in them a desire to regain the 
rights which God has given them, I shall rejoice at 
it. I would not desist from speaking truth in this 
hall, if all the slaves in the universe were listening 
to me. No, sir, if I had the power, I would, from 
this forum, give to every slave south of Mason and 
Dixon's line a perfect knowledge of his rights. I 
would explain, to their understanding, the oppres- 
sion that weighs down their intellects, and shuts 
out truth from their comprehension. I would 
explain to them the outrage which has robbed 
them of their humanity, reduced them to the level 
of chattels, and which subjects them to sale, like 
brutes, in the market.^ Could my voice be heard 
by them from this hall, I would teach them that 
they came from the hand of the same Creator as 
ourselves, and were endowed by him with the 
same inalienable rights as those who now lord it 
over them." 

The time for the Presidential convention was 
approaching, and Taylor was evidently to be the 
nominee of the Whigs. From the time when the 



170 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

shadow of this event first fell across the political 
course, Giddings had never wavered in his deter- 
mination to refuse, in any event, to vote for or in 
any manner support a man who, to his mind, rep- 
resented the incarnation of the Mexican wrong, 
and could not but be recognized as a devotee of 
slavery and of the slave power. He was far from 
being alone in his determination, though few held so 
strongly against Taylor as did he. Greeley wrote 
him a note in April, strongly urging the address 
of a letter, signed by the anti-slavery men in Con- 
gress, to every prospective Presidential candidate, 
asking the views of each upon the issue raised by 
the Wilmot proviso. Greeley was at that time, and 
always, opposed in feeling to Taylor. 0;i the 7th 
of June, 1848, Taylor was nominated by the 
Whigs in convention at Philadelphia, without any 
previous announcement of principles. These were, 
in fact, but too well known. Cass was nominated 
by the Democrats. He had opposed the Wilmot 
proviso, and the choice between the two was a 
hard one for the Free Soilers. Giddings was de- 
termined upon an independent nomination. Many 
were with him, but some, whose action was biased 
by personal considerations, were less adventurous. 
Greeley wrote, under date of June 20th, as follows: 
''I have yours of the 17th. I have now waited 
twelve days for such demonstrations of free senti- 
ment, as ought to have followed the Baltimore and 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. I // 

Philadelphia nominations. The truth is there is 
no deep devotion to principle among any large 
portion of the American people. Each man has 
a keen regard for his own rights, and for whatever 
may palpably affect them, but for the rights of 
* niggers ' who cares ? . . . The Free 

Soil platform will hardly carry a State. It might 
serve to elect Cass, but would only throw all the 
anti-slavery element of both parties out of Con- 
gress, and enable the extensionists to carry slav- 
ery to the Pacific, without a struggle in Congress. 
It is idle to stand, when Webster, and Calhoun, 
and Ashmun, and Wilson, give in. To be sacri- 
ficed for the sake of principle will do. To court 
ruin for the benefit of Cass, I do not find so invit- 
ing. Of course I do not ask to influence your 
course ; I but indicate my own. All I have is 
embarked in the Tribune, v/ith a great deal more, 
belonging to others. I cannot wreck it all in a 
course, of which the fullest contemplated success 
would seem to be the triumph of Cass. My pres- 
ent purpose is to say and do veiy little with regard 
to the Presidency, but to act generally with the 
Whig party." 

Charles Sumner had no newspaper, and hence 
took a different course. At the conclusion of a 
letter written to urge Mr. Giddings to speak in 
Boston, he says: ''I have just met Abbot Law- 
rence. I said to him : ' I am glad you were not 



jyS JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

nominated for the Vice-Presidency. ' ' That is a 
doubtful compHment, ' said a bystander ; ' I would 
not have Mr. Lawrence's name,' said I, 'desecrated 
by association with General Taylor.' He then 
said, * Do you know where 5/ou are going? You 
will have to support Martin Van Buren.' 'I am 
ready,' was my reply. So I am. If the Utica* 
Convention nominates him, will he not be our 
man? He has suffered in the cause of anti- 
Texas." 

Unaffected by the discouragement of the doubt- 
ers, Giddings, on the 30th of June — the war appro- 
priation being under discussion — made a speech in 
which he embodied a declaration of independence 
on the part of the Free Soil party, and practically 
gave notice that he and his friends would not sup- 
port Taylor. The history of the campaign, the 
nomination of Van Buren and Adams by the Free 
Soilers, and the election of Taylor do not need 
rehearsal. The Free Soilers did not secure an 
electoral vote, and the effect of their campaign, 
though important in its influence upon public sen- 
timent and the future, had nothing to do with the 
imm<ediate result. 

The second session of the Thirtieth Congress 
began in December of the year 1849. Mr. Gid- 
dings took his seat with a heavy heart. Adams 

*The Convention was held at Buffalo. 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 79 

was dead, and while many new supporters of the 
great cause had arisen, he felt the loss of his old- 
time friend and counsellor most keenly. Then, 
too, he came in the shadow of a defeat, and in 
deep anxiety for the fate of his country, since 
the helm seemed to be indeed in the hands of 
its enemies. The solitude of his life he knew 
would be great, for absolute social ostracism 
awaited him, now that he had cut the slender 
thread which had bound him to the Whig party. 
His own constituency, and the old-line Whigs of 
northern Ohio, who had mostly supported Van 
Buren, were still with him, and the little circle of 
Free Soil Representatives and Senators afforded 
him almost the only break in his lonely life. The 
year was notable to him for the unsuccessful effort 
made by his friends in Ohio to elect him to the 
Senate from that State, an effort which failed for 
the reason that, while all men admitted his hon- 
esty, many feared to send to the Senate one who 
avowedly held his principles above his party. 

Mr. Riddle has well said that there is small rea- 
son to regret this result, for Giddings was needed 
in the House, and had a work to do there, which 
must have been abandoned had he attained to the 
greater dignity of the Senatorship. Neither he 
nor the people could have afforded the exchange. 
Then, too, to again borrow from Riddle, the place 
was held for Wade, a man who had his mission to 



l80 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

perform, and might never have found the field, but 
for the defeat of his neighbor and friend. In 
Congress the Southern men were organized and 
combative. They held conferences with closed 
doors, and finally formulated and promulgated their 
famous address to the people of the United States. 
For the brief period from the beginning to the 
close of 1849, it is possible for us to catch a few 
glimpses of Mr. Giddings' personality, of which 
his modesty and singleness of purpose, when in 
the House, keep us so much in ignorance. The 
second and last existing of what was probably a 
complete series of private journals, covers these 
months. It is interesting to notice the evident 
change in manner of thought, the ripening and 
development, since J 838-9, when the journal 
previously quoted was kept, and at the same time 
to see how, in the seclusion of his chamber and in 
the frankness of this private record, he gives evi- 
dence of having carried with him, during the ten 
years of his public life, an unchanged devotion to 
the cause which he had made his own. Never 
was a man so engrossed without bringing something 
to pass, and the world owes to his constant putting 
aside of every less weighty thought and measure, 
the effect which his labors produced. 

The Whigs did not ostracize Mr. Giddings 
without giving him a chance. He was promised 
the Ohio Senatorship upon the one simple and 



JOSHUA R. GIDDIXGS. l8l 

easy condition, of declaring his fealty to the party 
which held the bauble up to him, but, though five 
minutes' time, a few lines scrawled and signed, 
would have given him the prize, he never thought 
of taking it at such a cost. 

In December, almost at the beginning of the 
session, came before the House the old question of 
slavery, and the old effort to induce Congress to 
recognize slaves as property, in the form of a bill 
to pay Antonia Pacheco the value of a slave lost 
in the public service. Upon this measure Mr. Gid- 
dings made one of the most powerful speeches of 
his life, thus defeating it. Later, the vote by which 
it was lost, was reconsidered, and the bill passed 
the House, but was never brought up in the Senate. 
Mr. Giddings' journal gives so clear a view of the 
difficulties under which he labored, the conscien- 
tiousness of his effort, and the methods which he 
adopted in preparing for this debate, that it will 
bear quotation, as furnishing a valuable contribu- 
tion to our knowledge of the man. On the 3d of 
January he made the following entry: 

"The ordinary business of legislation was re- 
sumed to-day. Several members called on me to 
assure me that the bill for the relief of Pacheco 
will pass, and that I am wTong in entertaining the 
doctrine that there is no property in man. Among 
those w^ho appeared thus determined to adhere to 



1 82 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

cherished errors, was Horace Greeley, of the New 
York Tribune. 

''January 4th. My motion to reconsider the re- 
port upon the engrossment of the bill to pay 
Antonia Pacheco for a slave, came up to-day in 
order, but I postponed it to give opportunity to 
pass the bill to establish a board of private claims. 
From different parts of the country the papers 
teem with abuse of myself, and it is quite evident 
that the doughfaces here are trying to prepare 
theniselves and others to sustain the bill of Pa- 
checo, against my opposition. The subject rests 
with so much weight on my mind that I cannot 
sleep at night, and it is visibly affecting my 
health. I have prepared the argument with much 
labor, and never entered upon a case with better 
preparation. My friend, Horace Mann, of Massa- 
chusetts, advises me to pass over the Constitu- 
tional arguments, and make a strictly legal effort. 
Mr. Palfrey advises me to go into a Constitutional 
investigation. I feel that I am to speak to the 
country, and I shall, therefore, address the reader 
of my speech, rather than the hearer; posterity, 
rather than the House of Representatives. 

"January 6th. The first business in order this 
day was my motion to reconsider the vote on the 
Pacheco bill. I went to the House trembling with 
fear of a failure. My health was poor. Mr. 
Rockwell, of Connecticut, appealed to me to post- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 83 

pone the matter. I could not do so without en- 
dangering my health, and hence I proceeded with 
my speech. I soon saw that I had the ear of the 
House. Certain slaveholders and some dough- 
faces attempted to keep up conversation and 
laughter for awhile, but I soon saw the deep-seated 
feeling that worked in their breasts. I had no 
lack of words or of thoughts, and the appearance 
of the House indicated that my argument told. 
When I sat down I felt that I had never made a 
more effective speech. . . . Some 

friends came to me and said that I had surpassed 
all expectation, and had undoubtedly killed the 
bill. Some members who had not spoken to me 
for weeks, came to my seat and congratulated me 
on my effort. The slaveholders looked solemn 
and perplexed. In order to save time and test 
the full effect of my remarks, I withdrew my mo- 
tion to reconsider, and took the vote on the pass- 
age of the bill. The scene that followed I will not 
attempt to describe, but leave it to the newspapers; 
but when I saw the speaker constrained to give a 
vote on the bill — the House being divided eighty- 
nine to ninety — I rejoiced greatly, and really now 
think those among the happiest moments of my 
life. . . . At evening I met our Free Soil 
friends at Dr. Palfrey's. They all congratulated 
me upon the manner in which I had acquitted my- 



1 84 JOSHUA R, GIDDINGS. 

self, and were united in the opinion that it had 
been a great day for freedom." 

Men are apt to be honest with themselves. If 
there be any egotism about a person it is very likely 
to come out in his journal, but the child-like 
modesty and simplicity of the statement which 
Mr. Giddings makes of what was, in truth, a great 
achievement, are characteristic of him, and are never 
once belied in all the pages of journals and corre- 
spondence. He was accused of being overbear- 
ing; overbearing he was, but only with the stern 
boldness which his cause gave him. It was not 
he^ but the truth speaking in him, which made him 
capable of the persistent and almost dogged re- 
sistance which carried his work to its final fruition. 
Of this modesty no better example can be found 
than the entry made in his journal, while his pros- 
pects for election to the Ohio Senatorship were 
being canvassed. On the 24th of January he 
writes : 

" By the mail of this evening I received several 
letters from Columbus which speak cheerfully of 
my prospects for the Senate. One from Dr. 
Townsend gives me some little hope of election, 
for which, however, I do not feel anxious, as I 
think I can do more good in the House, where I 
have established an influence, than I can in the 
Senate, where I should meet with intellects of a 
higher order ; men of nerve, experience, and of far 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. 185 

greater intelligence. But the moral effect of my 
election would be great, and on that account I feel 
a desire to succeed to that office. " 

On February 23d, the news reached Washington 
that Chase was elected to the Senate, and Mr. Gid- 
dings dismissed what cannot but have been an at- 
tractive possibility, in these few words : "In the 
Intelligencer of this morning I found the news of 
Mr. Chase's election to the Senate. I was so far 
from being mortified at this result, that I may truly 
say it gave me pleasure. I felt that it would prob- 
ably promote the cause more than my own eleva- 
tion to that office. Mr. Palfrey seemed to feel 
some degree of mortification, and expressed regrets 
at my failure. This gave me more pain than I felt 
at the defeat of my election." 

As ''misfortunes never come singly," the even- 
ing of the day on which Mr. Giddings received 
news of his defeat at Columbus, the ex-com- 
mander and President-elect, General Taylor, 
reached Washington. Mr. Giddings dismisses 
this event in* much the same tone ascribed by 
Shakespeare to Marullus, when rebuking' the 
populace for their ovation to Caesar. These were 
his words: "General Taylor was to arrive at 
half-past seven o'clock p. m., but did not reach the 
city until half-past eight. A large number of peo- 
ple gathered at the depot, as he approached — several 
cannons were fired, rockets were sent up, and the 



1 86 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

multitude raised a shout. I was taking a walk and 
had reached the west front of the Capitol when 
the cars arrived. I listened to the senseless 
clamor, then walked to my lodgings with a lower 
estimate of mankind than I had previously enter- 
tained. " 

That Mr. Giddings was almost completely cut 
off from the society of the Capital, has already 
been stated. The journal for the winter of 1848— 
49 abounds in references to the fact, and the phil- 
osophical acceptance of it is at once amusing 
and to a degree pathetic. There was surely a 
great struggle in the mind of a proud and sensi- 
tive man, before he brought himself to write these 
words: ''This evening the speaker had a party, 
and I suppose all the members of both parties were 
invited except myself I occupied the evening in 
writing out a speech which I hope will tell against 
him and his party." 

The Southern manifesto, to which reference has 
already been made, was adopted, and excited the 
deep interest, while it did not involve the personal 
record of Mr. Giddings. He tells how he sat in 
his room, watching the lights in the Capitol, and 
expecting a message regarding the result, until 
sleep overcame him and he retired to rest, leaving 
the conference still in session. "The mountain 
labored and gave birth to a ridiculous mouse,'* 
for, when these night sessions were over, and the 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 8/ 

result was promulgated to the world, it was but a 
restatement of old fallacies; a reaffirmation of 
threadbare lies. 

One more thing remained for the slave-holding 
and slave-favoring majority of the House to at- 
tempt, and that was the admission of California 
and New Mexico as slave States. Mr. Giddings 
was not now, as of old, standing almost alone in 
the cause of liberty ; about him was a little band of 
the best and most brilliant men in Congress. 
Palfrey, the learned, polished, and devoted mem- 
ber for Massachusetts ; Root, of Ohio, one of the 
subtlest and most able debaters in the House ; 
Tuck, of New Hampshire; Wilmot, of Pennsyl- 
vania; these, and others like them, stood at his 
side. Perhaps Charles Francis Adams deserves 
the credit of being far-sighted enough to discern 
what were the plans of the South, for in Mr. Gid- 
dings' diary, under date of February 9, 1849, 
appears a statement that a letter had been received 
by Mr. Palfrey from Mr. Adams, warning the anti- 
slavery men that an effort would probably be 
made, at the close of the session, to secure a terri- 
torial extension in the interest of slavery. From 
that time until the adjournment, the forces of the 
anti-slavery party slept on their arms, and when, 
on the second of March, but one day before the 
adjournment, the California admission was pressed 
as a clause of the civil and diplomatic bill, it found 



1 88 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

the anti-slavery men, headed by Mr. Giddings, 
opposed to it, with determination enough, and 
votes enough, to block the wheels of legislation 
rather than allow it to pass. The journal says, 
under date of March 2d: 

''At the assembling of the House this morning 
I was told that the President elect had been elec- 
tioneering with the members to sustain the amend- 
ment to the Civil and Diplomatic bill, which, in 
effect, extends slavery into California. Soon after 
the House was called to order, the committee on 
Ways and Means reported an amendment to the 
Senate's amendment . This I much regretted, as 
it admitted the correctness of placing this import- 
ant measure in an appropriation bill. When the 
vote was taken in committee of the whole, on a 
question of order, I obtained a decision which 
strikes out the Senate's amendments entirely, and 
this brought down upon me the censure of the 
whole Whig party, who raised the cry that I had 
defeated the whole object of the committee on 
Ways and Means. But the vote of the House 
showed my correctness. We rejected the amend- 
ment by one hundred and fourteen to one hun- 
dred." 

It should be understood that there was a dead- 
lock between Senate and House on the subject of 
California, a clear majority of the Senate favoring 
the slave-holders' side of the question, and the 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 1 89 

House Opposing it. It should also be understood 
that the fate of the Territory of New Mexico, 
about to be erected, hung also in the balance. Let 
Mr. Giddings' journal of the 2d of March tell the 
remainder of the story : ' ' When we met this 
evening, we learned that the committee of confer- 
ence had failed to asrree. The doubt which hune 



over the subject became painful. Men became 
excited and forgot other business. The House 
proceeded in the ordinary course of business. The 
committee of conference reported their disagree- 
ment at about 3 o'clock p. m. At this point great 
excitement was manifested in all parts of the 
House. The galleries were filled to suffocation, 
every part of the House was crowded, and a con- 
test ensued for the purpose of obtaining parlia- 
mentary advantage. The House receded from its 
former amendment, and then proceeded to amend 
the Senate's amendment, by providing for the con- 
tinuance in force of the Mexican laws. At this 
point the excitement became intense. Several 
gentlemen had abandoned their former position 
and voted with the South. Southern men were 
boisterous ; many Northern men were so excited 
that they appeared to know little what was going 

on. My friend, Mr. , of Illinois, came over 

to the Whig side of the House, where I was sit- 
ting, and told me that, if violence occurred on 
their side of the House, I must not forget them 



190 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

nor leave my friends there to suffer. He left me 
and returned to his seat. I soon after crossed over 
and found him sitting silent. I inquired if they 
were as good-natured as the Whigs on our side of 
the House were. He said not; that threats were 
made to take their hearts out. I made a light re- 
ply. Mr. Meade, of Virginia, was standing by, 
and remarked to another gentleman, that there 
was no way to manage them, but to put them in 
personal fear. I remarked : * That is not a very 
good way.' He looked pale, his lips quivered, 
and, shaking his fist in my face, he began to 
threaten me, at the same time seizing me by the 
collar with his left hand. Looking him coolly in 
the face, I told him not to be excited, when other 
gentlemen interfered and took him from me." 

Then follows a statement of the amendments of 
the bill. 

Mr. Giddings continues: ''I then visited the 
Senate chamber. Several members of that body 
were greatly intoxicated — too much so to appear 
in public. A long discussion on the amendment 
took place, which occupied until 5 o'clock on 
Tuesday, March 4th, when they receded from 
their amendment, and the bill was sent to the 
President for his signature. So ended the Thir- 
tieth Congress, amid drunkenness and disgraceful 
confusion." 

The opening of the Thirty-first Congress was 



JOSHUA R. GIDDIXGS. I9I 

sufficiently uneventful. The election of Speaker 
occupied the time of the House until the 22d of 
December. Mr. Howell Cobb was the candidate 
of the Democrats, Mr. Winthrop of the Whigs. 
Neither would give a pledge to make up the com- 
mittees fairly, and hence the eight Free Soil votes, 
which would have elected either, were withheld 
and usually gwQ:r\,pcrfonna, to Mr. Wilmot. At 
last, in pursuance of a Democratic resolution that 
the candidate having a plurality vote should be 
declared elected, Mr. Cobb became Speaker, hav- 
ing one hundred and two votes to Winthrop's 
ninety-nine. Though this result was accomplished 
through the medium of a resolution offered by a 
Democrat, the disappointed journals of the Whig 
party did not scruple to charge the Free Soilers 
with the responsibility for the result, and Mr. Gid- 
dings, as their leader, came in for a large share 
of personal abuse. Mr. Giddings answered in the 
House. Slavery was the topic of the session. 
The Free Soil members unremittingly pressed the 
subject, hanging their recurring motions and reso- 
lutions upon the admission of California, and the 
erection of New Mexico, with a prohibition of 
slavery, and upon the question of slavery in the 
District of Columbia. The immediate effect was 
to keep the Whigs and Democrats in a state of 
constant irritation and fear. However determined 
the friends of slavery might be to support their 



192 TOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

peculiar institution to the last, they were very 
averse to the constant discussion of the subject 
which was thus forced upon them, compelling 
them, day after day, to commit and recommit them- 
selves in the matter, and, as they could not but 
see, awakening the North and strengthening the 
anti-slavery party by the force of agitation. 

The secondary effect was to drive the Southern 
members into a position of aggression. Day after 
day the Senate talked of nothing but the Clay and 
the Bell compromise resolutions. The debattson 
these subjects crowded all legitimate legislation, 
from that body. Webster threw himself, body 
and soul, into the fight for the extensionist cause, 
and closed, when the session was very old, by 
advocating and assisting to a passage, the infamous 
fugitive slave law,* which disgraced that session. 
Texas was bribed with ten million dollars, to con- 
sent to surrender territory that was never her own, 
and these two great wrongs finally had, to offset 
them, only the defeat of slavery in California and 
New Mexico, and the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia. Giddings never worked 

*These are Giddings' words regarding this bill: "The fugitive slave 
law is unconstitutional, is an outrage upon the rights of freemen, 
which, if enforced, will lead to civil war. It cannot be executed; it 
shall be repealed. Sooner than have the North submit to such degra- 
dation as to pass under the yoke of slavery, and pay tribute to slave- 
drivers for their runaways. I would see every slaveholder in the Nation 
hanged." 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. I93 

harder than at that session. He was constantly in 
debate, and no less than four of the set speeches 
which he selected for publication in the volume 
issued by him in 1853, were delivered during that 
session. The first was the defense of the Free 
Soilers against the charge of having thrown the 
Speakership into the hands of the Democrats ; the 
second was on the California matter, the third in re- 
lation to New Mexico, and the last that reviewing 
the President's message. In the first-named 
speech he quite vindicated himself and his party, 
and incidently obtained a last opportunity to pay 
his devoirs to Mr. Winthrop. A copy of this 
speech he sent to Charles Sumner, and received 
the following reply: *T ought sooner to have 
thanked you for the satisfaction I have derived 
from your speech. Like everything from you it 
is solid in matter, and in style also. It is a con- 
tribution of real value to our cause. Your vote 
against Winthrop is completely vindicated. I 
cannot disguise the deep regard and reverence with 
which your unselfish devotion to high principles 
has filled me. John Q. Adams said to me that 
you were the most valuable member of Congress. 
He said the truth." 

Thus the first session of the Thirty-first Con- 
gress came to an end, with the burthen of legisla- 
tion decidedly favorable to slavery, and a feeling 



194 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

of confidence on the part of the South, propor- 
tioned to the depression of the North. 

From this point to the close of his career, it is 
far more difficult to trace the minute particulars of 
the life of Mr. Giddings than heretofore. Mr. 
Riddle, in his excellent sketch so often quoted, 
has acknowledged the same difficulty which meets 
the author here. The available private records 
are exhausted, no journals and but few of the let- 
ters of the Ohio veteran can be found. Letters of 
others addressed to him exist in great numbers, 
and offer a rich and tempting field to the historian, 
but one which must be left mostly untouched by 
the author of a work of this scope. Then, too, 
though Giddings was greater in every sense than 
in the earlier years of his services in the House, 
his was no longer a solitary greatness. 

Webster had committed poHtical suicide by his 
stand on the fugitive slave law and kindred sub- 
jects, and, beginning with the Thirty-second Con- 
gress, Charles Sumner took the seat which the or- 
ator of Massachusetts had so long held, and with 
him were Chase, of Ohio, Seward, of New York, 
and, shortly after. Wade, of Ohio. In the House, 
Palfrey, Tuck, and Root already, and, year by year, 
others as devoted and conscientious, were added to 
the Free Soil ranks, so that Giddings was no longer 
compelled to fight all the battles of freedom, or to 
fight any of them single handed, as in the days 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I95 

following his investment more than a dozen years 
before. To follow closely his part in affairs for 
the seven years which intervened from the meet- 
ing of the Thirty-second Congress, until the end, 
would be intrinsically difficult, foreign to the ob- 
ject of this unpretentious little work, and of doubt- 
ful profit. The master in science will take one 
fossil bone of an extinct and unknown animal, 
and, so beautiful and consistent is the work 
of nature, that from this dumb and expression- 
less bit of matter, he will construct by synthe- 
sis a counterfeit presentment of the animal of 
which it was a part. So with Giddings. No one 
who has followed these pages thus far could hesi- 
tate in assigning to him his proper place in rela- 
tion to every question which arose during the re- 
maining years of his service. The few concluding 
pages of this book will hence be devoted to de- 
scribing the episodes of those last years, rather than 
to attempting farther to follow the thread of his 
life. 



196 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 



VIII. 

The legislature of Ohio determined to defeat the 
re-election of Giddings, and why it is hard to say. 
Perhaps he was not enough of a party man ; per- 
haps he thought too little of appropriations — at all 
events, during the session of i85i-i852a ''gerry- 
mander" of the State was so made as to throw 
Giddings into the Twentieth District of Ohio, 
consisting of the counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, 
and Mahoning, in which his enemies were confident 
he could not secure an election. Cuyahoga, 
Geauga, and Lake counties, held the old number, 
and were known as the Sixteenth District. When 
time brought the fall election of 1852, Giddings 
was the candidate of the Free Soil party, and 
found two men in the field against him. Of these 
one, Woods, received 4,428 votes ; the other, 
Newton, 4,169; while the old champion surprised 
his friends, and confounded his enemies, by secur. 
ing a vote of 5,752, and an election, in a hostile 
territory. A great dinner was given at Painesville 



JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. 1 9/ 

in his honor. The wisest and best men in the 
United States were bidden to the feast ; many came, 
and many more sent, by telegraph or mail, kind and 
appreciative messages, which must have cut the 
narrow-minded enemies of the brave old man to 
the quick. And so again he returned in triumph 
to Washington, this time triumphant over the 
enemies who were of his own household, and with 
him went Edward Wade, of Cleveland, a brother 
of Ben Wade, and a man in thought and method, 
after Giddings' own heart, whom the scheme which 
was intended to unseat him, had made Representa- 
tive from the new Sixteenth District. 

At the same election, with Pierce, Scott, and 
Hale in the Presidential field, the Whig party died 
the death ; the polished, useless administration of 
Pierce followed, and the Free Soil party made 
grand progress, by the very agency of defeat, 
towards its final triumph, under the Republican 
name. 

The Thirty-second Congress, came with slavery 
exulting over the so-called compromise measures, 
and the fugitive slave law, — never so arrogant and 
overbearing. There seemed to be a union of Whigs 
and Democrats, upon the specious compromise 
platform, and both parties united in saying that 
abolitionism was dead, and slavery at last certain 
of definite and absolute recognition. Giddings 
and the Free Soilers saw further, and thought, as 



198 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

they did not hesitate to say, that there could never 
be lasting peace between parties which had been 
for years so bitterly and radically opposed to each 
other. And so it proved. Almost in the same 
breath which boasted that slave agitation had been 
compromised out of existence, began the bicker- 
ing between the parties concerning the credit for 
that result, neither wishing the other to gain polit- 
ical capital. Then Giddings, a member of the 
Committee on Territories, introduced a bill for the 
admission of Kansas. To this he attached no 
condition regarding slavery, for he held the inhi- 
bition of the Missouri compromise to be all suf- 
ficient. The bill passed the House, was held in 
the Senate, and when, during the early days of 
the next Congress, the subject again came up, the 
South, with its Northern contingent, consummated 
the greatest political outrage in the history of the 
United States, by the repeal of the Missouri com- 
promise, the solemnly adopted compact against 
the Northern progress of slavery, which should 
have been as inviolable as the Constitution. The 
brood of wrongs and crimes which grew from this act, 
cannot, and need not, here be specified. Through 
all the days of the discussion, in and out of Con- 
gress, while the outrages of the bastard legisla- 
ture and false Constitution of Lecompton were 
leading to the murder of free American citizens, 
by the long-haired ruffians of Missouri, and, worse. 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. I99 

by the soldiery of the United States, Giddings 
was instant, in argument, protest, and invective. 
The volume of his published speeches gives some 
glimpse of this work ; the journal of the House 
gives more. One incident of the excitement is 
worthy of notice, as showing how naturally the 
friends of freedom turned to the old champion in 
those hours of trial, and, also, as related to sub- 
sequent events — that is the fact that there was a 
correspondence between Mr. Giddings and John 
Brown. The tone of the two letters appended is 
sufficient to show that, at that time certainly, no 
intimate relations existed between Brown and 
Giddings. The first is as follows : 

City of Weston, Missouri, January 27, 1856. 

Hon. J. R. Giddings, 

Washington City. 

Dear Sir: 

I presume an apology is unnecessary, in ad-, 
dressing a letter to one so warmly interested as 
yourself on the great question of the day, viz : the 
freeing of this great country from the curse of 
slavery. Sir, six months ago I left my native 
State, York, for a home in Kansas. I settled, on 
my arrival in the territory, about four miles from 
Lawrence, and built me a good house, where I re- 
sided until the border ruffians invaded the terri- 
tory. They, knowing my adherence to the cause 
of freedom, and my being a Northern man, took 



200 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

me a prisoner and kept me as such for four days, 
treating me worse than one of their slaves. After 
my release they told me I must leave the country. 
I did not do it, but went to Eaton, and remained 
there quietly until last Friday week, the day of 
election. They then sent their minions out to 
disturb our election, which they did. They killed 
two men for us. How long are we to be treated 
like dogs? General Pomeroy promised us men 
and means to carry on the war. Sir, are we to 
have them, or are we to be driven from the terri- 
tory, after all the sacrifices of time and money we 
have made? Will you, sir, inform me if we are to 
have the means to drive the last B. R. from the 
country ? I, for one, am ready to stay if we are. 
If we do not have them soon we will be driven 
from the land. Answer requested immediately. 
I must close for fear of interruption. 

Respectfully yrs., 

John Brown. 

The second, still more urgent, reads thus: 

OsAWATOMiE, Kansas Territory, 20th 
February, 1856. 
Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, 

Washington, D. C. 
Dear Sir: 

I write to say that a number of the United 
States soldiers are quartered in this vicinity, for the 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 20I 

ostensible purpose of removing intruders from 
certain Indian lands. It is, however, believed 
that the administration has no thought of remov- 
ing the Missourians from the Indian lands, but 
that the real object is to have the men in readiness 
to act in enforcement of the hellish enactments of 
the (so-called) Kansas Legislature ; absolutely 
abominated by a great majority of the inhabitants 
of the territory and spurned by them up to this 
time. I confidently believe that the next move- 
ment on the part of the administration and its pro- 
slavery masters will be either to drive the people 
here to submit to those infernal enactments or to 
assume what will be termed treasonable grounds, 
by shooting down the poor soldiers of the country, 
with whom they have no quarrel whatever. I ask 
in the name of Almighty God; I ask in the name 
of our venerated forefathers ; I ask in the name of 
all that good or true men ever held dear, will Con- 
gress suffer us to be driven to such "dire extrem- 
ities " ? Will anything be done? Please send me 
a few lines at this place. Long acquaintance with 
your public life and a slight personal acquaintance 
incline and embolden me to make this appeal to 
yourself. Everything is still on the surface just 
now. Circumstances are, however, of a most sus- 
picious character. 

Very Respectfully Yours, 

John Brown. 



202 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

Anticipating events, it may here be said that, 
when John Brown lay wounded and a prisoner, 
after his capture at Harper's Ferry, Mason, of Vir- 
ginia, and Vallandingham, with the true chivalry 
and honor of their home and party, went to the 
prisoner, conversed with him, and then gave forth 
a pretended confession of the brave old martyr, 
implicating Giddings in his plan against Virginia. 
The latter cut off a denial of this lie by Brown, 
but Giddings stamped it as false, in terms as with- 
ering and bitter as any ever applied, even to Val- 
landingham. Riddle tells us that a reward was 
offered in Richmond for Giddings, or for his head; 
well would it have been for the South had they 
had a few such heads. 

To return: in December, 1855, the Thirty-fourth 
Congress convened. During all the long fight 
made by Mr. Giddings and his friends, from the 
adoption of the Atherton gag, in 1838, no sub- 
stantial success had ever been made in securing 
freedom of petition on the subject of slavery, and 
justice in consideratian of petitions and memorials 
so received. To be sure, the gag rule had been 
stricken from the manual, but, failing to keep 
silence by legislation, the same result had been 
secured by organization. When the Thirty-fourth 
Congress opened, Mr. Giddings took up the old 
battle, which he had waged at the organization of 
every Congress since his first opposition of Win- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 203 

throp. A coalition was effected of the Know- 
Nothings, numbering forty votes, and the Free 
Soilers, far more numerous. Resolutions were 
adopted by these allies, declaring that they would 
give their votes for speaker to no man who would 
not pledge himself, in advance, to so make up the 
committees as to insure fair and just treatment to 
all. No such pledge could be obtained from the 
candidates of the old parties, hence, Nathaniel P. 
Banks, a fearless and outspoken enemy of slavery 
— a man who then used his tongue as he later used 
his sword, was nominated. The battle was fierce 
and long; December and January passed, and Feb- 
ruary came, finding the House still unorganized. 
Finally, on the 4th day of February, 1856, and on 
the one hundred and thirty-third ballot. Banks was 
declared elected, the anti-slavery cause had won a 
fair fight, and was ever afterwards a power. Well 
might Giddings then have said : ' ' Now let thy 
servant go in peace," for the beginning of the end 
had come. Riddle's description of what follows is 
too graphic to be passed by. He says: "Then 
the grand figure of the hero of so many fights, 
and now the victor, with his full locks of silvery 
white hair, came forward, as the father of the 
House, to crown with the oath of office the young 
speaker. The galleries recognized him, and spon- 
taneous cheers greeted him. Standing just within 
the inner row of desks in the old hall, with up- 



204 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

raised hand and swelling voice, having the thrill 
of emotion in it, he administered the oath in the 
form of the Puritans." And so was consummated 
the first great organic triumph of freedom in Con- 
gress. 

Giddings was one of the leading spirits of the 
Philadelphia convention of 1856. He drew a 
portion of the platform, and divided with Preston 
King the christening of the infant Republican 
party, begotten in the days of his darkest dis- 
couragement, and born in the travail of the Le- 
compton time. Fremont was not, Buchanan was, 
elected, and the Thirty-fifth Congress opened. 
It was to be the last of Giddings' legislative 
career, and while he left his mark upon its record, 
his course needs not be followed here. Early in 
1857, he fell one day, in his place, stricken with 
heart disease. He did not die, as all thought he 
would, at once, but rallied, and, in a measure, re- 
covered. He served the session out; his friends 
in Ohio thought nothing human more certain than 
his renomination ; he neither cared for it, nor 
made an effort to secure it. He was old in years, 
weary with service, and shattered in health. No 
one represented him at the convention, and a 
quietly but perfectly organized opposition de- 
feated his nomination by one vote. Perhaps it 
was as well. 

He seems to have left Congress when his work 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 20$ 

was fully done, as he entered it, to fill a place that 
was providentially awaiting him. 
Has not some one wisely said 

" Happy is he who is not born too soon, 
And whom the Gods vouchsafe a timely death " ? 

Perhaps the change of tone, the change of issues, 
which came with secession and war, might have 
left the noble old leader an incumbrance upon the 
field ; surely they could not have failed to bring him 
much sorrow and heaviness of heart. 

From the many expressions of respect, affec- 
tion, and regret that were received by Mr. G id- 
dings, upon his retirement, the author cannot re- 
frain from quoting two. They speak for them- 
selves : 

William H. Seward writes from Auburn, New 
York, under date of October i, 1858: 

" I shall have some curiosity to see the bold 
man that is to come into your place at Washing- 
ton. He will come there under prodigious respon- 
sibilities. I sincerely hoped that your time of ser- 
vice, protracted as it has been, might not end before 
my own. But you have nothing to regret. You 
have overcome sentiments the most prejudiced and 
violent, and have established for yourself a name 
that the friends of humanity will never suffer to 
perish." 

The following letter deserves quotation entire. 
It was sent, not after Giddings' final retirement 



206 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

from Congress, but after the attack which pros- 
trated him in the House. It furnishes a good 
index of the feelings of his closest friends towards 

him : 

Washington, January 25, 1857. 

My Dear Friend : 

I cannot permit you to leave this place for 
your home under the existing circumstances, with- 
out expressing to you, in this emphatic manner, 
the very great satisfaction I have enjoyed, in your 
acquaintance and friendship for so many years, and 
the admiration and respect I entertain for the 
patience, courage, fidelity, and ability, with which 
you have, through your Congressional life, main- 
tained a just but an unpopular cause. There are 
very painful considerations connected with the 
necessity, which at this time compels a suspension 
if not a final termination of your very valuable 
labors in the House, but they are not all so. 
There is a pleasant and cheerful aspect which it 
presents; you or myself do not believe that acci- 
dents, strictly speaking, ever occur, but that the 
minutest incidents in the physical world are parts 
of that chain of events, by which the natural and 
the spiritual worlds are connected, and that what 
men blindly call accidents, are the results of laws 
fixed and unerring as those by which the universe 
moves in its course through the illimitable regions 
of space. In the light of such a faith, the highest 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 20/ 

wisdom is to learn the teachings of every event. 
And what, my dear sir, is the palpable instruc- 
tion of the severe teaching which you have just 
had? Is it not manifestly this, that God has just 
now no more work for you to do in the particular 
field in which you have so long labored, but that 
you are to be transferred to another and less excit- 
ing, but not less profitable sphere of action ? And 
if there has ever lived, since Paul, a man who, 
without arrogance, might appropriate to himself 
the words of the apostle, when he declares, * * I 
have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith," 
I believe you are the one, I hope and trust that 
many years and years of physical and mental vigor 
may be added to your life, but, whether your 
future years be few or many, whether they be 
years of feebleness or strength, I have no doubt 
that you will ever enjoy the affection of many 
friends, the respect of your opponents, and the 
prayers and blessings of the unfortunate and 
oppressed, in whose behalf you have done so 
much. But, whatever the future may have 
in store for you, your success in life is no longer a 
problem. You have succeeded, for 

" They never fail who die 
" In a good cause; the block may lick their gore; 
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs 
Be strung to city gates and castle walls- - 
But still their spirit walks abroad, though years 
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom ; 



208 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
Which overpower all others, and conduct 
The world at last to freedom." 

Very sincerely, your friend, 

John P. Hale. 

Hon. J. R. Giddings. 

Only once more does he come prominently be- 
fore the American people. Then, a delegate to 
the Chicago convention of i860, the second of 
the Republican party, he sought in vain for a place 
upon the committee on resolutions. This was 
denied him, for even then the party doubted the 
advisability of making slavery an issue in the cam- 
paign. The resolutions, as reported, had not a 
word to say against slavery. He moved such a 
declaration as an amendment ; his motion was lost, 
he withdrew from the convention ; George Wil- 
liam Curtis re-presented the amendment, and, by 
his magnificent eloquence, secured its adoption. 
Then Giddings returned to his seat. 

In 1861 Lincoln offered him the consul general- 
ship of Canada, which he accepted. At Montreal, 
performing diligently and well his consular duties, 
working upon his ' ' History of the Rebellion ; Its 
Authors and Causes," which was never published, 
he spent the remainder of his days, passing at 
last, into the ** undiscovered country," on the 
27th day of May, 1864. 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 2O9 

The history of Joshua R. Giddings, as a pubhc 
man, was practically ended when he retired from 
the House of Representatives. The old proverb 
that '* Every bullet has its billet," may well be 
applied to men. All men have missions; some 
fail by reason of inherent weakness, of careless- 
ness, or the overwhelming- force of circumstances, 
to assume their burthens, or to carry them to 
the end of the road ; but he who meets life's work 
bravely and performs it to the last, may find it 
done before life's allotted years are quite passed. 
So it was with Giddings. In the old farm days in 
Jefferson ; as a student, in the face of all difficul- 
ties; as a teacher of the primitive frontier school; 
as a lawyer upon the circuit ; as a Representative 
in the Legislature of his State ; as a Congressman 
for twenty-one years, his life was a unit. He had 
a certain work to accomplish, and it was vouch- 
safed that he should carry it to such point that, as 
he had, with profit to the cause of humanity, re- 
lieved the guard of John Quincy Adams, so, in 
turn, younger men than he might well assume the 
burthen of his beloved cause. The appointment 
in Canada, the term of service there, the sudden 
fall, — but a fulfillment of the dread prophecy of 
185/, — the story of all this has been told almost in 
as many sentences. Little then remains to say. 
Much of the history of the long and busy life 
has been omitted for the reason that this work is a 



210 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

sketch and not a biography. Giddings for years 
was in fact the editor of the Ashtabula Sentinel, 
defining its policy, making it his mouth-piece for 
the utterance of many a truth, that the power of 
wrong would not permit to be told in Con- 
gress ; giving it an influence in the cause of liberty 
beyond that of any similar paper in the land. His 
work found its way into the columns of many 
other journals, both of his own and opposite In- 
clining. Upon the stump and the rostrum he 
spoke often, not only in his own district, but 
throughout the North and East, — spoke, too, 
always fearlessly and well, earned reputation, and 
exerted influence in the most intellectual circles of 
the United States, and everywhere, in season and 
out of season, struck stalwart blows hi the cause 
which he had made so peculiarly his own. All 
these Incidents of his laborious life must be dis- 
missed with a word. 

Then, too, with all that has been told, this un- 
pretentious sketch has given few glimpses of Gid- 
dings as a man — socially and in domestic life — 
so far has his work overshadowed his personality. 
He was a man of rare kindness, broad sympathy, 
benevolence and simple modesty. Every line of 
his private journals and correspondence proves his 
deep feeling, his love for home, his devotion to 
friends and family. 

It is not difficult for one who has seen all these. 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 211 

to persuade himself that, had he not found work to 
do in Washington — had the issues of the day been of 
less vital importance, he would have chosen the 
quiet of home life, and the gain which waited on his 
professional skill, in preference to the empty honor 
of membership in a routine Congress. His letters 
to his wife, so mixed with private matters, and so 
open in their confidence, as to forbid quotation, 
tell again and again of loneliness, heart sickness, 
and the home-longing, which follows a good man 
from the threshold of his door until his steps again 
cross the magic line. There are, too, letters to 
his young daughters and granddaughters — children 
too young to "read writing," — laboriously printed 
in Roman text. He remembered, as did Sydney 
Smith, when abroad, not only the members of his 
family, and their individual interests, but the very 
animals upon the place, and the smallest incidents 
of the quiet life at Jefferson. 

Then, too, while eager to carry home the news 
of a success, to share it with those whom he loved, 
he v/as as anxious to shield them from fear or 
mortification. When he had left the House, on 
the 6th of February, 1845, after Black, of Georgia, 
and Dawson, of Louisiana, had menaced him with 
death, he at once wrote his son a full account of 
the affair, deprecating the idea that it was serious, 
and concluded with these words: "Now, I sup- 
pose there will be all sorts of stories, as usual, and 



212 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

perhaps your mother may be alarmed, but you 
can assure her that I view the matter coolly, and 
that there is, in fact, no danger whatever. Do not 
let her know anything of it, unless it reaches her 
by the papers." This is but one of many such 
indications of thoughtfulness and affection. 

The author's work has been but clumsily done if 
many words are needed to guide the reader to a 
true knowledge of the character of Giddings. 
His contemporaries made estimates of him as vari- 
ous as were the conflicting interests of the day. 
Some called him a demagogue; some a fanatic. 
Some conceded his honesty but denied his sense ; 
others admitted his shrewdness but would allow 
him no principle. What was he in fact? Not a 
demagogue, for he chose for years the thorns 
and hunger of the wayside rather than the easy 
bed and sumptuous fare that sacrifice of what 
he believed to be truth would have earned him ; 
not a fanatic, for, whatever others advocated or at- 
tempted, he worked strictly within the boundaries 
of right and of constitutional authority. When his 
heart was breaking with the pity and indignation 
that slavery excited in every just and generous 
man, he sorrowfully admitted that only Providence 
could open a way to abolition ; that, under the 
Constitution which he daily invoked, the Federal 
Government had nothing to do with slavery in any 
State. His life work was defined by the determi- 



JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 213 

nation that, so far as it lay in him to prevent it, 
slavery should not be perpetuated by the introduc- 
tion of new slaves, or by the pollution of new ter- 
ritory, and that the Federal Government should 
not be made to stand sponsor to its wrongs. He 
no more hesitated in 1S44 in offending the Liberty 
party by refusing to support Birney, than he did 
four years later in supporting Van Buren against 
Taylor, and thus drawing down upon himself the 
anathemas of the Whigs. If he was a fanatic, 
then such is every man who prefers the right, to 
the winning of wealth, ease, place, and praise, at 
the sacrifice of principle ; if he was a demagogue, 
then so was St. Paul when, at the command of the 
Lord, he turned in the dusty highway and obeyed 
the heavenly voice, casting aside all the advantage 
of station and the favor of power, to go forth and 
preach the truth to men. 



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